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SUN YAT SEN 



AND THE AWAKENING OF CHINA 



By 
JAMES CANTLIE, M.A., M.B., F.R.C.S. 

Dean of the College of Medicine, H&ng Kong (1889-1896) 
AND 

C. SHERIDAN JONES 



ILLUSTRATED 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

LONDOM AND EDINBURGH 



Copyright, 1912, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



3 






New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 125. N. Wabash Ave. 
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 



2)C(.A32?85B 





SUN YAT SEN 
With Autograph 



(^^ 



FOREWORD 

SEVERAL ^mblishers within the last six 
months have favored me with a request 
that I should write an account of Sun 
Yat Sen and his work. I felt honored by 
their doing so, but being diffident of my 
ability to accomplish the task, and not having 
SI 'ficient time at my disposal, I most reluc- 
antly had to decline, and it was not until 
there was promised me the valuable help of 
Mr. C. Sheridan Jones that I was able to 
entertain the idea. 

To the excellent chapters contributed by 
Mr. Sheridan Jones I have only been able 
to add my personal experiences, and to tell 
something of the character and career of 
Sun Yat Sen, and the nature of the arduous 
struggle in which he engaged. For twenty- 
five years my wife and myself have had the 
privilege of a close and intimate acquaintance 
with Sun. With the passing of years the ties 
of friendship have increased, and we have 

3 



4 FOREWORD 

learned more than ever to appreciate Ms 
strength of character, his earnestness of pur- 
pose, his modesty of mind, and to understand 
the secret of his power, whereby he was en- 
abled to bring to a successful issue the great 
work of his life. 

My chief regret is that I have been able 
to paint so meagre a picture of a truly noble 
character. 

James Cantlie. 



CONTENTS 

I. Introductory 9 

II. Sun Yat Sen : the Man and His Work 22 

III. The Rise of a Great Tyranny . 66 

IV. The Last op the Manchus . . 86 
V. The Struggle 108 



VI. A Graceful Tribute to the Mings 
— The Reform Movement 

VII. The Flag of the New Republic 

VIII. Things Chinese .... 
IX. The Fight with Opium 

X. The Future of China 

A Statement and An Appeal by Sun 
Yat Sen ..... 



127 
139 
149 
204 
214 

241 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Sun Yat Sen, with autograph . . Frontispiece 

The Great Wall at Nankow Pass 

Sun Yat Sen and His Son in 1911 

Mrs. Sun Yat Sen with Her Son 

Sun Yat Sen while President of the Republic 
of China ...... 



Market Place in Full Blast 

A Typical Ancestral Temple 

Worshipping at the Ancestor's Grave 

The National Flag of the Chinese Republic 

Confucian and Buddhist Temples 

A Gate of Peking 

Sun Yat Sen's Two Daughters . 

The Pantagramme 

Scheme of the Constitution of Man 

An Anatomical Figure According to Chinese 
Conception .... 

Opium Smokers 

Outline Section Map of China . 

Heads and Tails 



18 
22 
60 

64 
80 
100 
128 
140 
150 
164 
174 
196 
198^ 

200 
205 
222 
236 



INTRODUCTOEY; 

IT was in the autumn of 1896 that the 
world first heard of Dr. Sun Yat Sen. A 
Chinese refugee had been kidnapped — • 
kidnapped in London; and Englishmen 
rubbed their eyes as they read how he had 
been seized in broad daylight, and was being 
held a prisoner in the Chinese Embassy, his 
liberty denied him, his very life in danger. 
Who does not remember the sensation the 
story caused, the tense excitement as to 
the man's fate, the wild conjectures as to the 
mode of his delivery? For a day or so the 
town, the whole country, talked of little else. 
And then, suddenly, Britahi intervened! 
Within a few days Sun was released. Al- 
most as speedily, for the excitement soon sub- 
sided, he was forgotten. 

But a decade and a half later the public 
recalled the strange event. For, on Decem- 
ber 29, 1911, they read with something like 
amazement the message from Renter's Nan- 
king correspondent telling the world that this 

9 



10 SUN YAT SEN 

same refugee, who had been hunted out of 
his own land and pursued even in ours, had 
lived to be proclaimed First President of the 
Chinese Eepublic and, quite obviously, was 
master of the unprecedented situation which 
had been created in that land of mystery. 
What had happened in the interval to give 
him this unique authority I How had this 
man, poor, obscure, unaided, achieved so 
wonderful a sway over the countless millions 
of his fellow-Celestials, usually deemed the 
most elusive of mankind? In what lay the 
secret of his power! To answer these ques- 
tions, so that the public may see Sun Yat 
Sen and the Chinese Eevolution in their true 
perspective, is to describe a career that, alike 
for sheer romance and historical importance, 
has never been surpassed^ 

For twenty years Sun Yat Sen has devoted 
every day and almost every hour of his life 
to one single object — the overthrow of the 
Manchu rule in China and the establishment 
of such representative Government as will 
insure the people elementary justice, free- 
dom from the extortions of corrupt man- 
darins, a free press, and facilities for edu- 
cation. He has risked death and torture on 
innumerable occasions. He has travelled on 
foot throughout a large part of the four mil- 
lion square miles of China, and, under vari- 



INTEODUCTOEY 11 

ous disguises, he has penetrated to almost 
every nook of his native country and left 
representatives in almost every to^vn, build- 
ing up, with matchless skill and patience, an 
organization whose network has gradually 
spread over the whole of that vast Em- 
pire. 

More, he has drawn upon the huge reserve 
of Chinese scattered in thousands all over 
the world, and to his countrymen in America, 
Honolulu, Japan, the Malay Peninsula and 
the Straits Settlements he has carried the 
message of revolt against the Manchu dy- 
nasty — ^the dynasty that every Chinese 
hates instinctively. He has visited these 
exiles repeatedly, gaining with each visit 
some new recruit or gleaning information 
that made possible some further avenue of 
activity inside the Flowery Land. He has 
bought arms in Europe to ^smuggle them 
through under the very nose of the authori- 
ties. He has made friends at many Euro- 
pean Embassies, and — hardest task of all — 
he has induced the Powers, through their 
representatives, to hold their hands whilst 
China worked out her own salvation. 

All this he has done, aided at first by only 
a few devoted friends, without resources of 
his own, and with his life and safety per- 
petually menaced by the ubiquitous Manchu 



12 SUN YAT SEN 

agents, who have left no stone unturned to 
destroy him or his influence. 

That he has succeeded so far as to bring 
China within sight of deliverance stamps 
him as one of the most remarkable men of 
our time. We have only to reflect for a 
moment upon the magnitude of his task, to 
recall the almost overwhelming obstacles 
confronting him, to realize how great a part 
he has played in the world's history. 

For if ever there was a country that of- 
fered difficulties to the organizing of a 
revolution, that surely was China. First, 
there is the almost overwhelming magnitude 
of the territory. To say that China has an 
area of 4,218,201 square miles is only to con- 
fuse the mind. But when we remember that 
the Empire is one-third larger than all 
Europe, that it is bigger than the United 
States, with Alaska and Great Britain thrown 
in (it is, in fact, a fourth of the habitable 
globe), we get some idea of its immensity. 
To arrange for men to act in concert over 
an area so great as this, or any large portion 
of it, is to overcome a difficulty that seems 
almost insuperable. Then consider the tem- 
perament of the people. They have been de- 
scribed as ''moving less in centuries than 
Western people do in decades.'' '' For 
nearly five thousand years," says Dr. Arthur 



INTRODUCTORY 13 

J. Brown in his book, ^' New Forces in Old 
China," ^* they have lived apart, sufficient 
unto themselves, cherishing their own ideals, 
plodding along their well-worn paths, igno- 
rant of or indifferent to the progress of the 
Western world, mechanically memorizing 
dead classics, and standing still compara- 
tively amid the tremendous onrush of mod- 
ern civilization." The very resources of 
their own land they have allowed to lie 
neglected. Baron von Richthofen estimates 
that they have 419,000 square miles under- 
laid with coal, of which 600,000,000,000 tons 
are anthracite, and that the single province 
of Shen-si could supply the entire world 
with coal for a thousand years. Add to this, 
apparently inexhaustible quantities of iron 
ore, and we have, of course, the two products 
on which material greatness largely depends. 
But the coal and iron are both unworked! 
It is not so very long ago since the Chinese 
Government acquired the first railway con- 
structed in China. It ran from Shanghai to 
Wu-sung, and great was the excitement of 
the populace ; but no sooner was it completed 
than the Government bought it, tore up the 
road-bed and dumped the engines into the 
river — pour encourager les cmtresi To-day 
the great bulk of the population of China 
are as untouched by railways as they are by 



14 SUK YAT SEN 

modern thongM or literature. ''Books on 
politics," said Sun Yat Sen, '' are not al- 
lowed; daily newspapers are prohibited in 
China; the world around, its people and 
politics, are shut out ; while no one below the 
rank of a mandarin of the seventh rank is 
allowed to read Chinese geography, far less 
foreign. 

'' The laws of the present dynasty are 
not for public reading; they are known only 
to the highest officials. The reading of books 
on military subjects is, in common with that 
of other prohibited matter, not only forbid- 
den, but is even punishable by death. No 
one is allowed, on pain of death, to invent 
anything new, or to make known any new 
discovery. In this way are the people kept 
in darkness, while the Government doles out 
to them what scraps of information it finds 
will suit its own ends.'' 

That Government's own decrees are elo- 
quent of the benighted condition of the peo- 
ple and of the almost incredible apathy that 
has fallen upon them. Take, for instance, 
the edict issued by the late Empress Dowager 
in November, 1906, in which she complains 
that " officials and people are separated by 
the employment of forms and ceremonies so 
as to make all matters neglected. These 
officials do not pay attention to the welfare 



INTRODUCTORY 15 

or troubles of those under them, and often 
to such an extent are they indifferent and 
corrupt that relatives and secretaries are 
permitted to browbeat and oppress the 
masses, while the gate-keepers and runners 
of the Yamens prey upon and devour the 
substance of the people. In such circum- 
stances can any one expect these local gov- 
ernments to flourish! How can the spirits 
of the people, moreover, be elevated under 
such a state of affairs? Dwelling upon this 
point makes us feel very indignant indeed/' 
Can we imagine such a confession of im- 
potency being addressed to a European peo- 
ple without exciting the promptest and most 
stimulating of replies? But the Chinese 
grins and bears it, or rather he did until a^ 
few months ago. 

The fact is that long ago there descended 
upon him the paralyzing blight of spiritual 
pride, and until very recent days its fetters 
have hung heavily on his soul. When the 
rest of the world was sunk in barbarism, 
China had a great, a splendid civilization of 
her own. Her people had created great 
buildings while Europeans had no better 
shelter than caves, her astronomers made 
accurate observations two hundred years be- 
fore Abraham left Ur. *^ They used fire- 
arms," says Dr. Brown, ^* at the beginning 



16 SUN YAT SEN 

of the Christian era; they first grew tea, 
manufactured gunpowder, made pottery, 
glue, and gelatine; they invented printing in 
movable types ^ve hundred years before that 
art was known in Europe; they discovered 
the principles of the mariner's compass 
without which the oceans could not be 
crossed, conceived the idea of artificial water- 
ways, and dug a canal six hundred miles 
long; they made mountain roads which, in 
the opinion of Dr. S. Wells Williams, ' when 
new, probably equalled in engineering and 
construction anything of the kind ever built 
by the Eomans '; and they invented the 
arch to which our modern architecture is so 
greatly indebted." 

It is not surprising, therefore, that with 
triumphs and achievements such as these 
to their credit, and with no rival, no com- 
petitor in civilization, near their throne, the 
Chinese became wedded to the idea that other 
nations were negligible quantities, barbari- 
ans who did not count, that they alone were 
the people, and wisdom would die with them. 
The obsession has remained nearly to our 
own day, and when Lord Nap.er proceeded 
to Canton, empowered by an Act of Parlia- 
ment to negotiate with the Chinese regard- 
ing trade '' to and from the dominions of the 
Emperor of China, and for the purpose of 



INTEODUCTORY 17 

protecting and promoting such trade," the 
Governor of Canton explained that he could 
not possibly receive a letter from the said 
barbarian, i.e., Lord Napier. Said he: 
** There has never been such a thing as out- 
side barbarians sending a letter. ... It is 
contrary to everything of dignity and de- 
corum. The thing is most decidedly impos- 
sible. . . . The barbarians of this nation 
(Great Britain) coming or leaving Canton 
have, beyond their trade, not any public 
business; and the commissioned officers of 
the Celestial Empire never take cognizance 
of the trivial affairs of trade. . . . The some 
hundreds of thousands of commercial duties 
yearly coming from the said nation concern 
not the Celestial Empire to the extent of a 
hair or a feather's down. The possession 
or absence of them is utterly unworthy of 
one careful thought." 

It is this temper of mind that any one 
bent on creating a revolution in China 
would find himself most emphatically '* up 
against " — an insular complacency that re- 
fuses even to consider outside events, and 
accepts its own surroundings as quite ** the 
best in the best of all possible worlds." 
Can one imagine a greater obstacle to any 
projected reform, based necessarily upon the 
experience of other nations? 



18 SUN YAT SEN 

Yet one such obstacle confronted Sun Yat 
Sen. Greater than China's immensity, 
greater even than the apathy which has 
fallen upon her citizens, was the hideous, 
ceaseless pressure of the Manchu tyranny. 
Nothing quite like it has ever before been 
known. In the days of European autocracy, 
the power of the Crown was always liable to 
effective challenge, first by the nobles, later 
by Parliament. But in China there is no 
Parliament and all the nobles are Manchus, 
jealous of their special prerogatives and all 
despising the Chinese, while every officer of 
state, from the governor of a province down 
to a policeman, is in favor, and for very 
obvious reasons, of maintaining the despot- 
ism at its height. Why is this? Again to 
quote from Sun Yat Sen: ** English read- 
ers are probably unaware of the smallness of 
the established salaries of provincial mag- 
nates. They will scarcely credit that the 
Viceroy of, say. Canton, ruling a country 
with a population larger than that of Great 
Britain, is allowed as his legal salary the 
paltry sum of £60 a year ; so that, in order 
to live and maintain himself in office, ac- 
cumulating fabulous riches the while, he re- 
sorts to extortion and the selling of justice. 
So-called education and the results of 
examinations are the one means of obtain- 




en 
in 

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INTRODUCTOKY 19 

ing official notice. Granted that a young 
scholar gains distinction, he proceeds to seek 
public employment, and, by bribing the Pe- 
king authorities, an official post is hoped for. 
Once obtained, as he cannot live on his sal- 
ary, perhaps he even pays so much annually 
for his post, license to squeeze is the result, 
and the man must be stupid indeed who can- 
not, when backed up by Government, make 
himself rich enough to buy a still higher 
post in a few years. With advancement 
comes increased license and additional fa- 
cility for self -enrichment, so that the clever- 
est ^ squeezer ' ultimately can obtain money 
enough to purchase the highest positions.^ 

** This official thief, with his mind warped 
by his mode of life, is the ultimate authority 
in all matters of social, political, and crimi- 
nal life. It is a feudal system, an imperium 
in imperio, an unjust autocracy, which 
thrives by its own rottenness. But this sys- 
tem of fattening on the public vitals — the 

^ See how this system worked out as regards the Individual 
Chinese. An English lady, resident near Canton, had for 
many years an excellent servant in her employ — veracious and 
reliable. He applied for leave of absence to inspect some coal- 
mines in which his savings had been invested. He would be 
absent only a few days, he said. Alas ! he was absent some 
months, and returned an emaciated wreck. He had been 
seized by a mandarin— imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and made 
to surrender his shares in the mines. 



20 SUN YAT SEN 

selling of power— is the chief means by 
which the Manchu dynasty continues to ex- 
ist. With this legalized corruption stamped 
as the highest ideal of government, who can 
wonder at the strong undercurrent of dissat- 
isfaction among the people? " 

Thus has the Manchu dynasty been main- 
tained ! It may be said, even so, was it not 
still open to wise and patriotic Chinese to 
make some organized effort to instruct the 
people? 

That is a question natural for any West- 
erner to ask. To a Chinese it appears too 
extravagant to answer, because there is an 
obstacle to the execution of such a project, 
which would be present to his mind the mo- 
ment it was proposed. 

At first blush there is something wildly 
incredible about the idea of a single clan 
able to exercise espionage over an entire 
empire, and that empire the vastest in the 
world. But what are the facts? The Man- 
chus have only kept their hold upon China 
by a system of terrorism and spying. The 
eye of the Emperor is everywhere — in the 
most humble cottage of the most remote vil- 
lage; in the crowded workroom; at the fac- 
tory gate; in the railway carriage; at the 
domestic fireside; everywhere! China has 
been honeycombed by an army of spies— 



INTEODUCTOEY 21 

spies who report a word, a hint of sedition, 
who act silently and swiftly, and whose 
superiors strike ruthlessly; spies who betray 
the confidences of relatives, the secrets of 
friends, who are without compunction, whose 
very identity is unsuspected and from whose 
inquisition nothing is hidden. Let a stranger 
come to a village in China, and within a 
few hours the authorities are informed; let 
a man whisper treason, and his life is for- 
feit. The very interior of the palace itself 
is infested with agents and eunuchs whose 
ears are strained to catch the faintest whis- 
per of the hated word ^^ reform," and who 
spy even upon the secret councils of their 
master, so that when, twelve years ago, 
Kuang Hsu, the reforming Emperor, dared 
to contemplate some mitigation of the Man- 
chu prerogatives, he was seized, conveyed a 
prisoner to an island palace, and '^ relegated 
to the nothingness of harem life." 

But where the Emperor failed. Sun Yat 
Sen succeeded. He has triumphed over 
three obstacles to revolution that seemed in- 
superable. First, an empire chaotic and im- 
mense; secondly, a people steeped in con- 
temptuous ignorance; lastly, a despotism 
that stood armed at all points between the 
people and every avenue of knowledge. Let 
us see how he contrived to overcome them. 



II 



SUN YAT SEN: THE MAN AND HIS 
WORK 

IN 1894 Dr. Sun Yat Sen joined a society 
in Canton of some eighteen prominent 
members whose object was the mending 
or ending of the Manchu monarchical power. 
In 1912 this great work was accomplished. 
Of the eighteen members seventeen were be- 
headed shortly after the inception of the 
idea, and Sun was the only member of the 
original ^* conspirators '' left to carry on 
the great upheaval. On February 12, 1912, 
the Manchu Emperor abdicated and Sun Yat 
Sen's purpose and life-work was accom- 
plished. Others have helped him, others 
have granted him sympathy and advice, 
others have given freely of their substance 
to carry on the work, but as the inceptor, 
the organizer, and the focus of all this great 
work Sun Yat Sen stands alone. History 
will assign him his proper place, but to the 
onlooker of to-day it is difficult to anticipate 
fully the tribute of credit which will be his. 

22 




SUN YAT SEN AND HIS SON IN 191 1 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 23 

The modern world professes to dislike 
heroes and heroics; everything tends to 
'^ strangle heroes '^ in these later times, and 
Sun Yat Sen would have been strangled in 
fact on many occasions had not a power 
which may well be termed supernatural pre- 
served him through storm and strife to ac- 
complish his destiny. Not only did his own 
countrymen set a price on his head and make 
many attempts to silence him for ever; not 
only have the official foreign representatives 
in Peking held his name and his aims in con- 
tempt, passing him by with contumely as but 
a loud-tongued demagogue, but certain im- 
portant newspapers, even when the whole 
world hung on his decisions concerning 
China's future, hesitated to print his very 
name, or to refer to his being, hoping there- 
by no doubt to minimize his influence and 
if possible to obliterate his power. What 
could this man, born of humble parents in 
an out-of-the-way Chinese village, know of 
sovereigns, of principalities, and powers? 
What could he do to upset an established 
dynasty and to uproot an ancient form of 
government which had held sway in China 
for centuries and controlled the destinies of 
some 400,000,000 people? 

He was declared to have neither influence, 
money, nor the training considered neces- 



24 SUN YAT SEN 

sary to organize a revolt, the magnitude of 
which has never been surpassed. He was at 
best a poor doctor who by a struggle gath- 
ered sufficient money together to keep him 
alive whilst yet he learned the rudiments of 
science and acquired a knowledge of medi- 
cine. A poor training, it would seem, for his 
life's work, but one which helped him to at- 
tain his ends and to bring salvation to his 
fellow-countrymen. Sun, however, had a 
greater power than either position, money or 
education could give him. 

Though deep-seated discontent simmered 
in the land, it seemed impossible to develop 
a master-mind in China fitted for the great 
task of reform from amongst the rich, the 
powerful, the families of ancient lineage, or 
the philosophic literati; so Providence se- 
lected a man from the humbler classes, a 
man endowed with gifts which money can- 
not buy, nor all the learning of East or West 
produce. What were these gifts? Accord- 
ing to Christian doctrines they may be 
summed in the words. Faith, Hope, and 
Charity— a firm faith in the belief that was 
within him; hope for the speedy regenera- 
tion of China, and charity towards neighbors. 
Charity in the true sense of the word is 
Sun's outstanding characteristic. An unkind 
thought, far less an unkind word, is foreign 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 25 

to his nature ; a keen regard for the feelings 
of those around him is apparent in his every 
word and deed ; unselfishness to a degree un- 
dreamt of amongst modern men ; a living ex- 
pression of the Sermon on the Mount. Such 
are some of the gifts of this extraordinary 
man; gifts which command success, which 
bind his friends to him with ^* hoops of 
steel," and have, not only amongst his coun- 
trymen, but also amongst the few Europeans 
and Americans who know Sun Yat Sen as he 
is, found men willing to devote their ener- 
gies, their time, their very lives to forward 
his aims, not alone for the cause he has at 
heart, but also for the man himself. The 
secret of his success is unselfishness — seeking 
only his country's good, not his own advance- 
ment; a patriot indeed with no axe to grind, 
no place seeker, willing to rule if called upon, 
ready and anxious to stand aside when the 
interests of his country are to be benefited 
thereby. 

Why was he listened to by his astute 
countrymen, when all others had failed in re- 
generating China? Why? The transparent 
honesty of the man; his manifest patriotism; 
the simplicity of his character ; the readiness 
to endure all for his country's sake, even tor- 
ture and death. Persecuted, imprisoned, 
slighted, a price set on his head, stamped 



26 SUN YAT SEN 

as an outcast and turned out of home and 
country, refused shelter now by one nation, 
now by another, until the wide world seemed 
to afford no place of safety where he could 
find rest. Neither in fact nor in fiction, 
neither in history nor in the ideals of ro- 
mance has any author dared to endow the 
heroes of his creation with persecutions such 
as his; for under no flag was he safe; nor 
in the uttermost parts of the earth, for a 
period of well-nigh twenty years, could he 
feel that a cruel death was not imminent. 

The idea of getting rid of the Manchus 
was no modern idea in China. A powerful 
and widespread body, '* The Triad Society," 
had existed almost ever since the Manchus 
ascended the throne, but it consisted of men 
of philosophic ideas without the capability 
or courage to put their ideas into practice. 
It was not until Sun Yat Sen came to the 
front that the idea was given concrete shape 
and brought to practical issue ; the old Triad 
Society, however, gave little direct help dur- 
ing the recent crisis, the members being 
afraid of action, for they well knew what 
failure meant. In China the death penalty 
was ever at hand when reforms were even 
whispered, and it was only when Sun took 
his life in his hand and boldly declared his 
intentions that any one was found cour- 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 27 

ageous enougli to denounce the Throne 
openly. 

Sun Yat Sen was born in 1867 in the 
province of Kwang-tung, in a remote village 
situated between the city of Canton and the 
Portuguese colony of Macao, some thirty 
miles south of Hong Kong. His father was 
a convert to Christianity, and was employed 
as a missionary agent by the London Mis- 
sionary Society. An English lady connected 
with the mission interested herself in the 
young lad, and by her help Sun was well 
grounded in English. At the age of eighteen 
Sun became attached to the hospital of the 
Anglo-American Mission in Canton, then 
under the direction of a surgeon of consider- 
able repute, Dr. Kerr. He became deeply 
interested in medicine and surgery, and when 
twenty years of age he came to Hong Kong 
to prosecute his studies in the newly, opened 
College of Medicine. 

It was in Hong Kong in 1887 I first met 
Sun Yat Sen; he came as a student to the 
College of Medicine for Chinese established 
in October of that year. I conceived the idea 
of establishing a college of the kind on my 
way out to China, and from the time I landed 
there in June, 1887, until October of that 
year I followed up the idea and found ready 
help from Dr. (now Sir) Patrick Manson, 



28 SUN YAT SEN 

Dr. Wm. Hartigan, Dr. Jordan, Mr. (now 
Sir) James Stewart Lockhart, Governor of 
Wei-hai-wei, and perhaps most important of 
all, Ho Kai (now Sir Ho Kai), M.D., Aber- 
deen, and barrister-at-law. Ho Kai, in lov- 
ing memory of Ms wife, Alice, an English 
lady, founded a hospital in Hong Kong, un- 
der the auspices of the London Missionary 
Society, and styled it the *' Alice Memorial 
Hospital.'' There the College of Medicine 
held its classes, and within its walls the 
students were given instruction in practical 
medicine and surgery. The college flourished 
largely owing to the exertions of Dr. J. C. 
Thomson, and several of the medical and 
scientific men in Hong Kong have devotedly 
continued the work without payment or re- 
ward of any kind. The College of Medicine 
is now merged in the University of Hong 
Kong, and what should be, and what will 
become, if properly supported, the nucleus 
of the greatest centre of Western teaching 
for China, was thus brought unpretentiously, 
but none the less effectively, into being. 

After ^Ye years' study Sun obtained the 
diploma to practise medicine and surgery 
from the College of Medicine. He was the 
first graduate of the College; and shortly 
afterwards he commenced to practise his 
profession in the Portuguese colony of 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 29 

Macao. He was tempted thither from the 
fact that Macao was adjacent to the village 
in which he was born, and because he had 
many friends in the district. In a large, well- 
built hospital Chinese patients were treated 
according to native methods. Sun impressed 
upon the Chinese governors of the hospital 
the importance and benefits of Western medi- 
cine; the future emancipator of China com- 
mended himself to these old-world-bred men 
by his honesty and unselfishness, as he did 
later to the whole mass of his countrymen. 
He persuaded them to open the portals of 
the hospital to admit him with his newly 
acquired knowledge. 'With a largeness of 
mind characteristic of the Chinese the gov- 
ernors said, ** Certainly, we will devote this 
wing of the hospital to European methods, 
and the other to Chinese practice, and we will 
judge the results." Is there another people 
in the world who would have answered thus? 
I doubt it. It was the action of large- 
minded, broad-viewed, high-principled, un- 
prejudiced men; an action characteristic, to 
those who know the Chinese, a people en- 
dowed with lofty ideas and willing to act 
upon them when thoroughly convinced of 
their possible benefits. 

The Chinese are ready students, earnest 
in their endeavor, quick to understand, re- 



30 SUN YAT SEN 

tentive of memory. It was perhaps the last- 
named feature that astonished one most. In 
Chinese schools everything is given over to 
training the memory. Knowledge, as we 
understand it, is quite a secondary factor in 
the so-called education given in Chinese 
schools. Moreover, no real instruction is 
permitted to be given to the people accord- 
ing to Manchu laws. Eepetition, unceasing 
repetition, is the essence of school-life in 
China. The mind is stored with words and 
sounds often wholly unintelligible to the 
scholar nor understood by the teacher. The 
effect of this constant repetition and memo- 
rizing is to develop a retentiveness of memory 
to a degree unbelievable to those who have 
not come into contact with Oriental students. 
A good example of the surprising extent to 
which memory can be cultivated occurred at 
one of the professional examinations for the 
diploma of the College of Medicine. The 
questions were answered perfectly, but on 
comparing the papers it was found that the 
answers were identical. Paragraphs, sen- 
tences, full stops, and commas were so placed 
that it did not matter which of the papers 
was looked at. The wording was the same. 
The examiners, new to Chinese methods of 
instruction, insisted on another paper being 
set, as they believed the students had by 



vx 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK SI 

some means copied from each other. A fresh 
paper of ^ve questions was set, and a careful 
watch kept during the examination. Again 
the answers were correct and identical in 
every point, and it was only when the text- 
book recommended to the class was referred 
to that an explanation was forthcoming. 
They knew the large text-book of some ^ve 
hundred pages by heart, and could answer 
any question put them word for word from 
the book. 

Sun commenced practice, and I encouraged 
him especially in surgical work. When ma- 
jor operations had to be done I went on sev- 
eral occasions to Macao to assist him, and 
there, in the presence of the governors of the 
hospital, he performed important operations, 
requiring skill, coolness of judgment, and 
dexterity. It was a goodly journey to Macao 
by sea, and took me away a considerable time 
from my daily routine of work. Why did I 
go this journey to Macao to help this man? 
For the reason that others have fought for 
and died for him, because I loved and re- 
spected him. His is a nature that draws 
men's regard towards him and makes them 
ready to serve him at the operating-table or 
on the battlefield ; an unexplainable influence, 
a magnetism which prevails and finds its ex- 
pression in attracting men to his side. 



32 SUN YAT SEN 

Surgical work is not conducted in China 
with the privacy that attends similar work 
with us. At Sun's operations the lay com- 
mittee of the hospital came and seated them- 
selves near the operating-table, and the rela- 
tives and friends of the patient stood around 
watching the proceedings attentively. Es- 
pecially did the manipulations in cutting for 
stone interest the onlookers. It was an 
operation that appealed to most men in that 
part of the country, for stone was not an 
uncommon ailment in the neighborhood. The 
necessary incisions to reach the stone re- 
quired a good deal of ^ * fanning ' ' on the part 
of the onlookers to keep them from fainting 
— every man carries a fan in the south of 
China; but when the stone was produced 
their qualms were forgotten, and the rejoic- 
ings and ^^ Hi-yas " of astonishment showed 
they were amply rewarded for the trying 
ordeal they had gone through. 

There is much publicity in illness in China, 
and the doctor's attendance is often made 
almost a public function. A foreign doctor's 
visit is of great interest, especially in the 
country districts and villages. He is fol- 
lowed by all and sundry to the house, and 
amongst a group of friends around the 
patient, with the villagers peering round the 
doorway and occupying every point of van- 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 33 

tage, lie lias to proceed to diagnose the nature 
of the illness or treat a surgical defect.. 

That the Chinese medical students are no 
mere bookworms, as their examination pa- 
pers would appear to show, but endowed with 
a practical sense of their duties was brought 
to light when plague broke out in Hong 
Kong in 1894. For work in the plague hos- 
pital under the control of the Alice Memorial 
Hospital, with which the College of Medicine 
was affiliated, the students readily and spon- 
taneously volunteered for duty in the wards. 
This may seem a small matter to-day, but in 
1894 epidemic plague was an unknown dis- 
ease for some two hundred years in either 
China or Europe, and the only accurate ac- 
count of its ravages was gathered from de- 
scriptions of the Great Plague of London 
in the seventeenth century, when exposure 
to infection meant death. 

Yet with the terrors of the disease before 
them, when many of their friends and rela- 
tions were dead or dying of the disease, and 
the population fleeing from the plague- 
stricken city, these students took up their 
duties in the wards, as clerks, dressers, and 
even nurses — ^wards in which every patient 
attacked died. A more noble example of 
faithfulness to their profession and heroic 
devotion has never been recorded. Prowess on 



34 SUN YAT SEN 

the battlefield, fighting in the stir of strife, 
is one thing, but to fact death in a plague 
hospital, or a cholera camp, when all around 
are dying, and to continue calmly at work 
day after day, night after night, and week 
after week, requires courage of another or- 
der. Gordon may have been proud of the 
valor of his Chinese troops, but those of us 
who saw the work the Chinese students did 
during that epidemic of plague are willing to 
bestow upon them a higher meed of praise 
than ever was acclaimed to the soldiers of 
Genghis Khan, before whose very name the 
continents of Asia and Europe trembled. 
The work of these students shows that China 
has men within its fold capable of the high- 
est courage and devotion to duty. 

One of the first diversions which I insti- 
tuted for the students from hospital work 
and lectures was the formation of a military 
ambulance company. After getting the stu- 
dents proficient in ^' first aid " and ambu- 
lance drill and providing a suitable uniform, 
I offered my company to the commandant of 
the Hong Kong Volunteer Artillery. The 
offer was accepted, and for years the Chinese 
students acted as the Ambulance Department 
of the Corps. I had just given up the com- 
mand of the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps, 
now the E.A.M.C. (T.F.), in London, and 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 35 

found that the Chinese students compared 
quite favorably with the London medical 
students in their aptitude and efficiency. I 
also induced the students to play cricket, and 
several of them, Sun included, gave promise 
of becoming good all-round cricketers, an 
accomplishment which in English eyes will 
at once commend the young men to favorable 
consideration. 

^^tn Macao, Sun first heard of * ^ The Young 
China Party," a legend we have become 
familiar with in relation to the *^ Young 
Turkish Party. ' '^ Had there been a Sun Yat 
Sen in Turkey the revolution of that party 
would have been a success ; there are in Tur- 
key revolutionists in plenty, but few true 
patriots, otherwise she would now be on the 
high road to success and liberty. Sun, how- 
ever, had to quit Macao, because, under Por- 
tuguese regulations, no one not possessing 
a Portuguese diploma could legitimately 
practise there, and so he removed to Can- 
ton to work. The activities, however, of the 
reform party became so pronounced, and Sun 
became so prominent amongst his colleagues, 
that he found little time for any work except 
political. How the attempt to capture Can- 
ton and its arsenal failed is told later on; 
how of all the prominent reformers Sun was 
the only one to escape alive is well known. 



36 SUN YAT SEN 

With Sun's many escapes my wife and my- 
self have been made, from time to time, fully 
acquainted, but it was not my intention to 
relate them until given permission to do so 
by Sun himself. In the Strand Magazine, 
April, 1912, Sun gives an account of several 
of these. His first escape was soon after he 
came to Canton after giving up his practice 
in Macao. He had enrolled himself as a mem- 
ber of the Young China Party, and in 1894 
formed a branch of the Kao-lao-hui in Can- 
ton! Knowing that the Emperor Kuang 
Hsii had serious intentions of introducing re- 
forms in governmental methods. Sun for- 
warded a petition signed by many of his 
adherents to the Emperor. All was quiet 
until the war with Japan was settled, when 
the imperious Dowager-Empress reassumed 
the direction of affairs and denounced the 
intentions of the Emperor and all reformers. 
With the cessation of hostilities against 
Japan, a number of the disbanded soldiers 
in Canton became riotous owing to want of 
pay and employment. The Canton police at 
the same time, owing to their pay not being 
forthcoming, took to looting the shops in the 
city. A meeting of indignant citizens was 
held, an unheard-of proceeding, and a depu- 
tation fiYQi hundred strong presented them- 
selves at the house of the Governor of the 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 37 

city. After hearing their demands the Grov- 
ernor regarded their presumption in the light 
of a rebellion and arrested the ringleaders. 
Sun had the good fortune to escape, but de- 
termined forthwith to rescue his companions 
who had been seized. That was his first 
escape. ' ' 

His second was more precarious. In the 
city of Swatow, some hundred and fifty miles 
north of Canton, something like a rebellion 
had prevailed for some time. Sun and his 
colleagues approached the revolutionaries 
and found them willing to join forces with 
him. The bold plan was then formed of seiz- 
ing the city of Canton as the only means 
whereby they could get what they considered 
their just claims conceded. Eifles, pistols, 
ammunition, and even dynamite were col- 
lected from every possible source, and a re- 
cruiting agent was sent to Hong Kong to 
enlist men and to purchase arms. 

The plot so far succeeded, but when all 
seemed ready news came from Swatow that 
the men could not move, as information con- 
cerning the rising had leaked out and the 
Government had the Tartar garrisons under 
arms and ready for action. Without the 
Swatow force nothing could be accomplished ; 
and telegrams were sent to Hong Kong to 
stop the sailing of the contingent. The men, 



38 SUN YAT SEN 

some four hundred strong, were on the quay 
at Hong Kong ready to go aboard the steamer 
for Canton. Several barrels containing pis- 
tols had been already shipped when the offi- 
cer in charge of the contingent received a 
telegram telling him not to proceed to Can- 
ton and to disband the men. The officer, 
however, unfortunately misread the telegram 
and allowed the men to embark, with the re- 
sult that they were captured in a body on 
reaching Canton. Thereupon, the Central 
Eeform Committee broke up their head- 
quarters in Canton, burnt their papers, hid 
their arms, and escaped from the city as best 
they could. 

Sun gained a friend's house; at night he 
was let down over the city wall and sought 
refuge on the canal banks to the south of 
the city. Here he wandered on towards 
home, now travelling in canal boats, now 
seeking the shore when soldiers came to 
search the boats for refugees, and finally 
reaching Macao, where he was hidden by 
friends. Macao, however, became too dan- 
gerous, and he went from thence to Hong 
Kong, then to Kobe and from there to 
Honolulu. 

It was not until fully a year after the Can- 
ton affair, when on my way home from China, 
via Honolulu across America, that I knew of 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 39 

his whereabouts. The vehicle in which I was 
driving with my wife, and a Japanese nurse 
in charge of my son, through the streets of 
Honolulu was stopped by a man, apparently 
a Japanese, looking very trim in European 
dress and with a moustache of respectable 
dimensions, who proffered his hand, raised 
his hat, and smiled affably. We all regarded 
him with astonishment; the Japanese nurse 
addressed him in Japanese, but he shook his 
head in response, and it was some time before 
we recognized it was Sun minus his cue and 
Chinese dress. A cordial greeting ensued 
and a visit to us in London was arranged. 

The resemblance of the Chinese to his 
Japanese neighbor when he is *' got-up '' in 
the same way is most marked; so identical 
do the two appear, that when we visited a 
shop in Honolulu the shopman addressed 
Sun, who was with us, in Japanese, and 
would not believe his repeated statement that 
he was not Japanese, but Chinese. Should 
the Chinese follow the example of the Japa- 
nese and lay aside their national dress, the 
identity of each will possibly disappear, and 
even the two peoples will not be able to recog- 
nize by their appearance to which nationality 
they belong. A pity in many ways, yet evi- 
dently an inevitable result of the modern- 
izing of both China and Japan. 



40 SUN YAT SEN 

Sun gives the following account of his ex- 
periences, about this time ; he says : 

'' At Hong Kong my safety was hardly more as- 
sured, and on Dr. Cantlie's advice I went to see 
a lawyer, Mr. Dennis, who told me that my best 
protection was instant flight. 

** * Peking's arm, though weaker, is still a long 
one,' he said, ' and in whichever part of the world 
you go, you must expect to hear of the Tsung-li- 
Yamen. ' 

*' Fortunately, friends provided me with funds, 
and here I must mention the constant fidelity of 
well-wishers to the great cause I have all these 
years endeavored to promote. They have never 
failed me. But then, fortunately, apart from trav- 
elling, my wants are few. I have often for weeks 
together lived on a little rice and water, and I have 
journeyed many hundreds of miles on foot. At 
other times I have had difficulty in refusing the 
large sums placed at my disposal, for some of my 
countrymen in America are very rich, generous, 
and patriotic. 

** At Kobe, whither I fled from Hong Kong, I 
took a step of great importance. I cut off my 
cue, which had been growing all my life. For 
some days I had not shaved my head, and I al- 
lowed the hair to grow on my upper lip. Then I 
went out to a clothier's and bought a suit of mod- 
ern Japanese garments. When I was fully dressed 
I looked in the mirror, and was astonished— and a 
good deal reassured— by the transformation. Na- 
ture had favored me. I was darker in complexion 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 41 

than most Chinese, a trait I had inherited from 
my mother, for my father resembled more the reg- 
ular type. I have seen it said that I have Malay 
blood in my veins, and also that I was bom in 
Honolulu. Both these statements are false. I am 
purely Chinese, as far as I know; but after the 
Japanese War, when the natives of Japan began to 
be treated with more respect, I had no trouble, 
when I had let my hair and moustache grow, in 
passing for a Japanese. I admit I owe a great 
deal to this circumstance, as otherwise I should 
not have escaped from many dangerous situations. 
** A similar experience befell me in Honolulu, 
where I spent six months after leaving Japan. I 
found many of my countrymen there, and they 
received me with open arms. They knew all about 
my exploits, and they also knew that a big price 
was placed on the head of the notorious * Sun 
Wen.' In the town of Honolulu I held a sort of 
levee every day, and I received letters and reports 
from my friends, the members of the Reform 
Party, the Kao-lao-hui. Thence I went to San 
Francisco, and enjoyed a sort of triumphal jour- 
ney through America, varied by reports that the 
Chinese Minister to Washington was doing his ut- 
most to have me kidnapped and carried back to 
China, where I well knew the fate that would be- 
fall me — first having my ankles crushed in a vice 
and broken by a hammer, my eyelids cut off, and, 
finally, be chopped to small fragments, so that none 
could claim my mortal remains. For the old 
Chinese code does not err on the side of mercy to 
political agitators. 



42 SUN YAT SEN 

" I sailed for England in September, 1896, and 
on the eleventh of the next month I was kidnapped 
at the Chinese Legation in Portland Place, Lon- 
don, by order of the Chinese Ambassador. The 
story of that kidnapping is already known fully to 
the world. It is enough to say here that I was 
locked up in a room under strict surveillance for 
twelve days, awaiting my transportation on board 
ship, as a lunatic, back to China, and that I should 
never have escaped had not my old friend and 
master, Dr. Cantlie, been then living in London. 
To him I managed, after many failures, to get 
through a message. He notified the newspapers, 
and the police and Lord Salisbury intervened at 
the eleventh hour and ordered my release.*' 

•Many inquiries have been sent to me, 
** How did you get information that Sun was 
imprisoned in the Legation? " As usual, a 
woman came to the rescue. The wife of one 
of the English servants in the Legation heard 
from her husband of the piteous plight of 
the imprisoned Chinese and sent me the fol- 
lowing letter. *^ There is a friend of yours 
imprisoned in the Chinese Legation here 
siQce last Sunday; they intend sending him 
out to China, where it is certain they will 
hang him. It is very sad for the poor man, 
and unless something is done at once hie will 
be taken away and no one will know it. I 
dare not sign my name, but this is the truth, 
so believe what I say. Whatever you do 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 43 

must be done at once, or it will be too late. 
His name is, I believe. Sin Yin Sen." The 
note reached my house at 11:30 p.m. on the 
night of Saturday, October 17, 1896. A ring 
at the door-bell brought me from my bed. I 
found no one at the door, but observed and 
picked up the letter, which had been pushed 
in below the door. It was this woman who 
started the machinery for Sun's release. 
Had this humble woman failed in her pur- 
pose the regeneration of China would have 
been thrown back indefinitely, for the last of 
the reformers would have lost his life and the 
Manchus would be still in power. 

I went to the head of the Marylebone police 
and thence to Scotland Yard the moment I 
received the information of his whereabouts. 
The chief difficulty was to get any one to be- 
lieve the story. The police even at Scotland 
Yard said it was none of their business, and 
that I had done my duty when I reported the 
matter to them, and that I ought to go home 
and keep quiet. My visit was at 1.30 a.m., 
and they told me the next day, when I called 
with Sir Patrick Manson, that a man had 
called in the middle of the night with the 
same statement, and that the inspector on 
duty could not make out whether he was 
drunk or a lunatic. I told the inspector now 
on duty I was the same man, and again he 



44 SUN YAT SEN 

gave me the advice to go home and keep quiet 
and that they conld do nothing in the matter 
as it did not concern them. "When asked to 
whom I should report the matter, I was told 
I had done my duty by reporting the matter 
to them, and that was enough. 

The want of initiative amongst the men 
'' on duty " at Scotland Yard it is needless 
to comment upon. Had I got in touch with 
those in higher authority the matter might 
have been different ; but it taught me the les- 
son so often preached, namely, that the dif- 
ference between the ^^ classes '' of men is the 
presence or absence of initiative. It was 
not until I got in touch with a member of 
the clerical staff at the Foreign Office, quite 
at the eleventh hour, that the matter was 
taken up and dealt with. Had I not been 
fortunate enough to meet a man accustomed 
to take initiative, *^ the dangerous lunatic " 
at the Chinese Legation would, twenty-four 
hours later, have been shipped to China to 
be punished in the way all Sun's colleagues 
had already been — ^namely, by decapitation. 
Emissaries of the Chinese Government 
haunted Sun's footsteps in Japan, in China, 
in Annam, and wherever he went. The 
enormous price set upon his head induced 
desperate men readily to undertake either 
his capture or his death. 



l/ 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 45 

Of his experiences after the kidnapping 
episode Sun writes : 

*' After some time spent in travel and study in 
London and Paris, I felt that the time had come 
to return to China. My country, I felt, needed 
me, and I arrived to find everything in a state of 
ferment. The whole world knows the story of the 
Boxer troubles. During that terrible time I was 
speaking and writing and lecturing — more con- 
fident now than ever that nothing could stave off 
the inevitable revolution. Daily I carried my life 
in my hand, for I began to have enemies now 
amongst the extremists, men who hated Europeans 
and European civilization, and wished to expel the 
* foreign devils ' from China. 

** It was now that another important event hap- 
pened to me. I was speaking to a company of 
my followers, when my eye fell on a young man 
of slight physique. He was under five feet high; 
he was about my age; his face was pale, and he 
looked delicate. Afterwards he came to me and 
said: 

** * I should like to throw in my lot with you. 
I should like to help you. I believe your propa- 
ganda will succeed.' 

*' His accent told me he was an American. He 
held out his hand. I took it and thanked him, 
wondering who he was. I thought he was a mis- 
sionary or a student. I was right. After he had 
gone I said to a friend: 

'* ' Who was that little hunchback? ' 

** * Oh, that,' said he, ' is Colonel Homer Lea, 



46 SUN YAT SEN 

one of the most brilliant— perhaps the most bril- 
liant military genius now alive. He is a perfect 
master of modern warfare/ 

'' I almost gasped in astonishment. 

** ' And he has just offered to throw in his lot 
with me.' 

'* The next morning I called on Homer Lea, 
now General, and the famous author of the 
* Valor of Ignorance.' I told him that in case 
I should succeed and my countrymen gave me the 
power to do so, I would make him my chief mili- 
tary adviser. 

'' ' Do not wait until you are President of 
China,' he said. * You may want me before then. 
You can neither make nor keep a Government 
without an army. I have the highest opinion of 
Chinamen as troops when they are properly 
trained. ' 

*' Most of the modern army — the troops trained 
in European tactics — are patriots and reformers, 
but until they seized the arsenal at Hanyang they 
were without ammunition. Blank cartridges were 
all that was ever served out to them." 

After Ms release from tlie Chinese Em- 
bassy in London in October, 1896, Sun 
stayed with us for some time before 
leaving for the Far East. His narrow 
escape did not check his intentions, but sent 
him forth more fully determined than ever 
to achieve his purpose. In Japan he 
found asylum, and from there he trav- 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 47 

elled incognito in various disguises which I 
even now do not feel justified in disclosing. 
He visited many parts of the interior of 
China, the Straits Settlements, the Malay 
Peninsula, the United States, and wherever 
Chinese had emigrated he preached reform 
and the necessity for strenuous endeavor. 
What did he preach? A bloodless reform, 
a reform by peaceful measures; convincing 
arguments were his weapons. The foe he set 
out to crush was the prevailing apathy and 
the political ignorance of his countrymen and 
their terror of declaring their real feelings. 
To raise troops of soldiers from amongst the 
floating population of China ready to fight for 
pay and to drive the Manchus from Peking 
would have been a light task compared to 
the work Sun set himself to do. He resolved 
that the people of China should ** rebel '' in 
the true sense of the word ; but how was this 
to be done! As Sun did it. 

In the interior of China, in a guise which 
defied the penetration of the officials, he 
preached the tenets of his belief. To the 
villagers on the banks of the mighty Yang- 
tse he brought tidings of liberty from its 
mouth in the China Seas to far Sze-chuen on 
the borders of Thibet; on the Pearl River 
he drew crowds to listen to him, and through- 
out the Kwangsi and Kwang-tung provinces 



48 SUN YAT SEN 

established centres of influence and gained 
able and enthusiastic supporters as his ad- 
herents. As a spectacled pedlar with knick- 
knacks in his wallet he travelled through the 
Malay Peninsula and the Straits Settlements, 
attracting not only the laboring coolies in the 
plantations but the masters as well. The 
well-to-do merchants in Penang and Singa- 
pore gave him their support and contributed 
sums of money to further the campaign he 
had in hand. In Honolulu, in San Francisco 
and other cities and centres of the United 
States, Sun converted men to his standard 
and gained their confidence by his convinc- 
ing honesty and unselfish patriotism. A 
simple talent apparently, but one that has 
served to bring light and hope to human 
beings before now, has stirred men to the 
highest efforts and founded the greatest of 
all the religions of the world. 

How did he preach? Was Sun the blatant, 
loud-tongued demagogue his European de- 
tractors would have us believe? Far other 
were the measures he adopted. In a recently 
published article, a well-known author gives 
an account of an address he heard delivered 
by Sun to a large meeting of Chinese in 
San Francisco. For three hours did he 
speak, quietly, seriously, without once pitch- 
ing his tones in passionate appeal or ever 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 49 

raising his hand to enforce his arguments. 
A simple sermon, during which his hearers 
neither applauded nor gave sign of dissent — 
a spellbound audience listening to a message 
which had been denied them for centuries. 
A message of hope to escape from a thral- 
dom compared with which the monarchical 
and religious tyranny of the Middle Ages in 
Western Europe appears as comparative 
freedom, for in China the people have no say 
whatever in the management of Imperial, 
national, or even municipal affairs ; the man- 
darins or local magistrates have full power of 
adjudication, from which there is no appeal. 
Their word is law, and they have full scope 
to practise their machinations with complete 
irresponsibility, and to fatten on the people 
with impunity. Extortion by officials is a 
recognized institution, the means by which 
the official lives and thrives. Appointments 
are procured by bribery, and once obtained 
the holder has complete license, and the 
higher the position he acquires the greater 
additional facilities are afforded for aggran- 
dizement and s elf -enrichment ; these officers 
are the ultimate authority in all matters af- 
fecting social, political and criminal life. 

The so-called education of the masses un- 
derwent a change when the Manchus came to 
rule the country; these uneducated, rude, and 



50 SUN YAT SEN 

uncultivated people, '' outer barbarians," as 
the Chinese called them, by a stroke of suc- 
cess in battle found themselves masters of 
the situation and seized the throne. Utterly 
ignorant of literature of any kind, they found 
to their surprise that the Chinese were an 
educated people, almost every coolie in the 
land could read, write, and count to somd 
extent, and many were scholars of attain- 
ment in the Chinese sense ; the Manchus were 
alarmed at the state of affairs, and believing 
that education was a present danger to them, 
they sought to stamp it out. This they found 
impossible ; so some clever men amongst them 
set to work to evolve a system of teaching 
which would count for nothing, whilst at the 
same time they humored the people by allow- 
ing them to prosecute study of a kind. The 
writings of Confucius and other sages were 
curtailed; all parts relating to the criticism 
of their superiors were carefully eliminated, 
and only those parts were published for pub- 
lic reading in schools which taught complete 
obedience to authority. 

To keep the masses in ignorance was the 
deliberate purpose of the Manchus ; the books 
they allowed to be published contained mere 
idioms, what we would term '' copy-book " 
texts. Of instruction these books afforded 
none ; their reading conveyed no knowledge — 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 51 

proverbs in poetic language devoid of infor- 
mation, reasoning in a circle which led to 
nothing. The boys (for girls were not al- 
lowed to be educated) were no better in- 
formed when they finished than when they 
began. * Nothing in history parallels this 
sham learning; the people demanded educa- 
tion, and their rulers gave them trite sayings 
to read, and kept them in total ignorance, r 
Sun Yat Sen, in his appeal to his country- 
men, had to begin at the very root of reform. , 

It was not merely a change of dynasty, of 
altering or amending laws, nor an extension 
of freedom, for none existed. The reform 
had to start from complete darkness; not 
even from chaos to cosmos, for there were 
not present even the very elements which go 
to form chaos. There had to be, as it were, 
a new heaven and a new earth; a complete 
submersion of the past, and a fresh resur- 
rection if freedom was to be obtained. No 
man ever attempted a task so huge, yet has 
it been accomplished by an unpretentious in- 
dividual with nothing to help him but hon- 
esty, unselfishness, ability and a readiness j 
to lay down his life for his country's sake. 

Other escapes from what seemed inevitable 
death were many. For safety Sun frequently 
lived on board junks on the river as he trav- 
elled in the interior of China. Once at Nan- 



52 SUN YAT SEN 

king a man entered Sun's cabin on board a 
junk and announced that he had been offered 
$5,000 to effect his capture. Sun reasoned 
with the would-be captor, with the result that 
the man fell at his feet in an agony of re- 
pentance and implored pardon. The man 
desisted. Why? Sun's personality merely, 
for he was not armed. No one who has 
come in close touch with Sun Yat Sen but 
has felt the magic of his presence. Honesty 
and patriotism endow him with an ^^ atmo- 
sphere '' that convinces his opponents to his 
views and serves to turn aside the assassin's 
knife and the betrayer's purpose. The be- 
trayer in this instance did as another be- 
trayer did, went and hanged himself, as he 
could not face the world again after having 
even thought of giving Sun up to his enemies. 
.. Once, when hiding in a fisherman's cabin 
outside Canton, soldiers were sent to watch 
the cabin and to shoot Sun at sight ; the fish- 
erman got to know of their presence and 
kept Sun indoors for two days, until, in fact, 
he was relieved of their attentions by some 
friend shooting the soldiers themselves.. 

Once, in the island of Hainan, owing to the 
house he occupied being watched, he never 
moved out of the compound for six months, 
and only by a clever ruse did he manage to 
get on board a boat and escape. , 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 53 

y 

One of the most serious attempts on his 
life was made by two young Government 
officials, attended by a dozen soldiers, in Can- 
ton. They entered Sun's room late one even- 
ing. The position was desperate, for his cap- 
ture or death would mean promotion and 
high rew^ards to these officers. Even then 
did Sun's calmness effect his safety. Ap- 
prised of their advent, he took up one of the 
sacred books on the table beside him and 
read aloud. The would-be captors listened 
and then began to ask questions. Sun en- 
tered into conversation with them, and in two 
hours' time the officials with their attendant 
soldiers departed. Sun's personality again 
told; the officials who came to arrest were 
themselves arrested by the magnetism of this 
extraordinary man, who wins all to his cause 
and sends his captors away happy that they 
failed in their enterprise. 

Thus for some seventeen years — from 1895 
to 1912 — has death by violence threatened 
him. More than once has a hired assassin 
entered the room he occupied; spies have 
watched him in almost every country, in- 
cluding England and America; a large sum, 
at one time amounting to' $500,000, was of- 
fered for his capture, and only now can he 
be said to be beyond attempts on his life.' 
How did Sun regard these? Latterly with 



54 SUN YAT SEN 

indifference, formerly with some apprehen- 
sion for the cause he had in hand. 

His host in San Francisco told me of his 
conversation with Sun on this subject. Sun 
had just spoken to an audience in that city 
in February, 1911, and when he rose to go 
his friend proposed accompanying him to his 
lodging. Sun remonstrated and said there 
was no occasion for that. His host said that 
it was very unsafe, seeing that a price was 
on his head, to go at night through the 
Chinese quarter of the city. At this Sun 
smiled, and said that there was no fear. His 
friend enforced the necessity by saying that 
it would be the ruin of the cause he had at 
heart were he to be killed. Whereat Sun 
again smiled and said, ^* Oh no, the cause 
will not be ruined by my death; everything 
is in order, my death will not affect it, the 
whole scheme is worked out to the most 
minute detail; the leaders are appointed, the 
generals are ready, the troops are organized, 
and nothing that can happen to me will make 
any difference. A few years ago, my death 
would have been a misfortune, but not now. ' ' 
Eegardless of everything except the welfare 
of his country, he had no thought of self and 
refused to be protected. He always spoke in 
this fashion concerning the dangers he ran. 
During his many visits to London, although 



THE MAN AND HIS WOKK 55 

when he left our house he was conscious he 
was followed, he regarded the matter with 
indifference. 

When he accompanied us to dinner at a 
friend's house, there was the inevitable spy 
or detective following us, and when we 
started to come home we were made aware of 
being watched and followed. My wife and 
myself were also ^^ honored" in this fashion 
on several occasions even when Sun had left 
the country, and our friends were at times 
alarmed that we might be punished for our 
friendship with Sun. Our being followed, 
however, was no doubt merely due to the fact 
that Sun had disappeared, and, having lost 
touch with his whereabouts, the authorities 
had us shadowed in the hope we were going 
to visit him at his lodgings, and thereby un- 
wittingly reveal his address. 

The early necessity for obtaining the ^^ sin- 
ews of war ' ' and his appreciation of his own 
people Sun has briefly expressed in the 
following : 

*' At the close of the Boxer rebellion I returned 
to America. There was one thing I wanted more 
than troops and arms — without which I saw I 
could have neither, and that was money. Not the 
money in quantities I had been receiving — here 
and there — but at least half a million sterling. 
Anything less than this would be failure. Now 



56 SUN YAT SEN 

began a new role for me — a canvasser for political 
funds. In this capacity I travelled in every city 
in America, and I visited all the leading bankers 
in Europe. Emissaries sent by me penetrated into 
all quarters. Some professing to act for me and 
in my name proved faithless. But I prefer not to 
speak of these — although one man is now uni- 
versally denounced as a traitor to the cause for 
having appropriated a huge sum of money en- 
trusted to his care. He will meet with his due 
reward. 

*' All over the world, and particularly in Amer- 
ica, the legend has grown up that Chinamen are 
selfish and mercenary. There never was a greater 
libel on a people. Many have given me their 
whole fortune. One Philadelphia laundryman 
called at my hotel after a meeting, and, thrusting 
a linen bag upon me, went away without a word. 
It contained his entire savings for twenty years." 

In this sketch of Sun Yat Sen I know how 
completely I have failed to depict the char- 
acter of this extraordinary man. My respect 
and regard for him may appear to have 
warped my judgment and directed my pen 
in too narrow a channel. Let there be no 
mistake in this matter, however; I have re- 
strained, not exaggerated, my feelings to- 
wards him. I have never known any one like 
Sun Yat Sen; if I were asked to name the 
most perfect character I ever knew, I would 
unhesitatingly say Sun Yat Sen. In our 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 57 

house he was the most welcome of visitors; 
children and servants alike conceived a deep 
regard for him ; his sweetness of disposition, 
his courtesy, his consideration for others, his 
interesting conversation, and his gracious de- 
meanor attract one towards him in an in- 
describable fashion, and have led me to think 
of him as a being apart, consecrated for the 
work he had in hand. 

And what could be more genuinely self- 
revealing, as regards the absence of selfish 
ambition and as indicating the devoted 
patriotism by which the man is consumed, 
than these paragraphs from his own pen : 

** So far it has all happened as I foretold, only 
the crisis has come a little more hurriedly. I ex- 
pected Yuan-Shih-Kai would have been able to 
hold out longer. I was so full of this belief that 
when a year ago Yuan sent for me I distrusted his 
messenger. I thought he was playing false, but 
he was really in earnest. He wished to remove 
the ban from my life and act openly in concert 
with me. But I said to his messenger : 

** * Go back to your master and tell him I have 
not labored fifteen years and suffered so many 
perils to be tricked so easily. Tell his Excellency 
I can wait.' 

*' If I had trusted Yuan's messenger the revolu- 
tion would have happened sooner, and I should 
now be in Peking. For I can count upon mil- 



58 SUN YAT SEN 

lions of followers. They will follow me to the 
death, as they have long followed my teachings. 



'' Whether I am to be the titular head of all 
China, or to work in conjunction with another, 
and that other Yuan-Shih-Kai, is of no importance 
to me. I have done my work; the wave of en- 
lightenment and progress cannot now be stayed, 
and China — ^the country in the world most fitted 
to be a republic, because of the industrious and 
docile character of the people — will, in a short 
time, take her place amongst the civilized and 
liberty-loving nations of the world.'' 

As a further instance of Sun's all-pervad- 
ing courtesy and kindliness, I would men- 
tion an occurrence, insignificant in itself no 
doubt, but under the circumstances interest- 
ing. He came to my house in November, 
1911, and the maid who opened the door, and 
who had known him for many years, gave 
Mm a smiling welcome. The chosen head of 
400,000,000 of people, carrying in his pocket 
a telegram just received asking him to be 
President of the Chinese Eepublic, shook 
hands with her and cordially returned the 
greeting. 

The story of this telegram is also of in- 
terest. It was sent from Canton and ad- 
dressed to Sun Wen, London. Sun Wen is 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 59 

Sun's official name, Sun Yat Sen Ms family 
name. Most Chinese have three or even four 
names. One the name his parents give him 
at birth; another the name his schoolmaster 
bestows upon him when he enters school; a 
third the young man selects for himself when 
he reaches adult years; and yet again he 
bears the name under which he is entered in 
the official records.^ The Chinese puts his 
family name, what we term the surname, 
first y- and it is only the latter part of the 
name, which stands for our first or Chris- 
tian name, which varies. 

^^ Sun Wen, London,'' was rather a vague 
address, but the Post Office officials wrote 
across the envelope, '^ Try Chinese Lega- 
tion." Thither the telegram was evidently 
sent, but when it was read it was forwarded 
on to my house with a message asking 
whether the person to whom it was ad- 
dressed was residing there. I was not at 
home, but my wife, luckily, was. Many tele- 
grams had been coming for some weeks be- 
fore Sun arrived in London, and we had in- 
structions to open them. This telegram was, 
of course, already open; the communication 
was in cipher, and after each ciphered word 
a Chinese character was evidently recently 
written. Sun had not reached our house 
when the telegram arrived, although we were 



60 SUN YAT SEN 

almost hourly expecting Mm, so Mrs. Cantlie 
was able to reply that Sun Wen was not with 
us. Her difficulty was what to do in the mat- 
ter; this might be a most important message, 
and one which Sun ought to be acquainted 
with. Yet to acknowledge Sun's advent 
might lead to trouble, for the Ambassador 
was still representing the Manchus, and he 
might have had instructions to secure Sun at 
all hazards for all we knew to the contrary. 
How was the difficulty to be got over! Mrs. 
Cantlie copied the cipher from the telegram, 
Chinese characters and all, and returned it 
by the messenger. 

When Sun came in some two hours after- 
wards, with the scores of letters and tele- 
grams awaiting him, Mrs. Cantlie handed 
him the cipher telegram referred to ; he read 
it, smiled, and put it in his pocket. Naturally 
we were anxious to know what was in this 
telegram; but we never, in all our intimacy 
with Sun, asked him anything that we con- 
sidered might be private, and we always 
begged him not to tell us anything in the 
nature of a secret concerning the work in 
which he was engaged. It was not until next 
day that Mrs. Cantlie referred to the tele- 
gram and told him its history; he asked who 
copied the Chinese characters, and was 
astounded, almost to unbelieving, that Mrs. 




O 
m 

X 
H 

< 

m 
u 



w 

CO 
ID 

CD 



THE MAN AND HIS WOEK 61 

Cantlie could have written the characters so 
exactly with a pen. When asked if the news 
was secret, '' Oh no/' he said, '' didn't I tell 
you I It was asking me to be President of 
the new Republic." 

Would any other man have received the 
news in the manner Sun did? I believe not. 
When we asked him if he would accept the 
presidency, he answered, after a little reflec- 
tion, ^' Yes, for the time being, if no one else 
can be found better in the meantime. ' ' Probe 
his thoughts as we might, there never was 
any semblance of self-seeking. The fact that 
the destinies of China were in his keeping 
never seemed to quicken the pulse of his 
thoughts or disturb his equanimity. The 
benefit of his country was his only considera- 
tion; nothing else mattered. Neither honors, 
place, position, nor reward were dreamt of, 
far less considered. The presidency might 
come and go, he cared not; his country's re- 
generation was before all. Not that the prin- 
ciple he held sacred ever found expression in 
words ; the commonplace florid oratory of the 
demagogue acclaiming the people's rights 
had no place in the category of Sun 's speech 
or methods. Confident of success, belief in 
the capabilities of the men he had selected 
to fill the important offices of state, complete 
reliance upon the character of the Chinese 



62 SUN YAT SEN 

people to work out their own salvation, and 
implicit trust in Yuan-Shih-Kai were the key- 
notes of Sun's endeavor. 



The consistent simplicity and amiability 
of Sun Yat Sen's character will be gathered 
from the following three letters recently re- 
ceived from him, and reproduced in facsimile. 



THE MAN AND HIS WORK 63 

f^ j[« IS S E l?i 1» 
REPUBLIC OF CHINA 

THE PSeSIOENT'S OFFICE. 

C/S^<mn4*'n«, January 81fit/i012>) 

liy Dear Dr* ftnd ura* Gantlle« 

It will be yoiar pleasure to' 
hear froni tne tnat I nave aseureed the Presidency or the 
'.Provisional Republican Government in China* which 1 accepts 
led with dlelntorested fervour in order to render myself an 
instrumentality to rescue China with its four hundred 
million population from environment of impending perils 
';and diehonova?. I ought to have written you much earlier^ 
but Boraothing or other always prevented rae from doing so , 
'having been Icept exceedingly busy since 1 arrived here and* 
^especially so since 1 occupied my present post, as you may 
well Imagine and fairly forgive* it maJces me feel more 
grateful to you when from the present position X look back 
on my past of hardships and strenuous toil, and think of. 
your kindnesses shown me all the while that 1 can never nor> 
•ill forget# I can say so "far that the state of things 
here in Nanking is Improving r&piaiy with a well founded 
prospect of future promise. 1 may not write you as of tert 
as I wish, but you may learn from the news-papere what I am 
'doing from time to time. Kindly convey my best complimenta 
to all oy frienda in London wHom you know and happen to meetji 
end oblige.' 

Kith beat wisl^ea and kindest regards, 1 ee^ain. 
lours very sincerely^ 



^yC^ 



cv^^'y^/<h 



64 SUN YAT SEN 

)fj ^ SS. il K ^ 't* 
REPUBLIC OF CHINA 

THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE, 

C^a^iiitta, March 3rd/19X2. 

My dear Doctor cantlie, 

1 have your very Kind and 
interesting letter which glvee me a great deal of pleasure, 
I am well. How that I have resigned Ift favoiar 
of Yuan Shl-kai, eince my work of revolution la completed, 
1 hope to be relieved of office aoon. But, 1 fear, things 
may yet take a less favourable turn and require my service 
a little longer. No doubt you have seen in the last two 
days' papers about the riot in Peking, this calls for the 
greatest attention and needs immediate action to prevent it 
to spread further. I hope however everything will reeum© 
its normal course before long. 

Yours 8incorely» 



^x^-^-Wy^-- 



THE MAN AND HIS WOKK 65 

m m ^ m u m ^ 

REPUBLIC OF CHINA 

THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE, 

Dear ure. Cantllo« 

Your welcome letter of February 18th 
afforded tne great pleasure, and It Is Indeed a delight to 
eee the familiar hand-writing again. 

It la true that the Tal Cliing dynasty la "a 
thing of the past" but the dethronement of the lianchua 
does not mean the complete salvation of China. We have an 
enormous amount of vork ahead of us, and It aust be acoom-- 
pushed In order that ehe may be ranked as a great power 
among the family of nations. 

X thank you for your earnest prayers offered in 
my behalf. I am glad to toll you that ve are going to have 
religious toleration In Ghlnai and l*m sure that Christian* 
Xty will flourish under the new regime. 

I am going to Canton ehortly and there try to 
convert the old city into a new and modern one. 

My family la In Hanking with me. My son will 
return to America for his education, and I am contemplating 
pending my elder daughter along with her brother for the 
eame purpose. If they should come to England 1 shall ask 
then to oako It a point to call on you and the doctor* 

1 close this letter with my kindest regards and 
best trlshea to you and dt» Contlle^' I remain. 

Yours elncerely. 



,,gX^^ 



Oi/t'^i/X^ 




Ill 

THE EISE OF A GEEAT TYEANNY 

TO understand aright tlie Chinese Eev- 
olution — the most remarkable event 
surely of our time — ^we must realize 
the nature of the forces opposing Sun Yat 
Sen and his supporters. We must find out, 
in fact, upon what the Manchus based 
their apparently impregnable despotism. 
The story is a fascinating one— almost as 
fascinating as it is sinister. In nothing is it 
more remarkable than this: that while the 
Manchus, once upon the Chinese throne, pro- 
fessed to be opposed inexorably to change, 
and determined to preserve intact and at all 
costs the institutions of the country, and 
while to all appearance they succeeded in 
doing so, yet in actual fact they contrived, 
all unsuspected, to transmute the whole char- 
acter of China's government and civilization. 
In this single fact we have the key to a 
dominion as mysterious as it was powerful 
— the dominion of a barbaric Tartar clan 
over an ancient empire. That their Manchu 

66 



EISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 67 

rulers were foreigners was always keenly- 
felt by the Chinese. Most wisely, therefore, 
did the Manchus show all the deference 
proper in foreigners to Chinese forms of gov- 
ernment, but none the less did they change 
the spirit of that government as completely 
as if they had thrown everything into the 
melting-pot. It is no exaggeration to say 
that the Empire Sun Yat Sen has overthrown 
was more alien to that of his forefathers 
than the Republic he has established, and 
the great achievement of the Revolution has 
been to restore China to her true, her normal 
self. 

It is easy to explain this paradox. Con- 
sider for a moment the working of the normal 
Chinese autocracy in the pre-Manchu days. 
It was absolutely different to all the despot- 
isms of the East. Such a thing, for instance, 
as the sudden elevation by the Emperor of 
grooms and barbers to high official posts was 
as unknown to China as it was familiar, say, 
to Turkey or Persia. The Chinese had found 
out the competitive examination, and in the 
old days it was only by hard and successful 
study that a Chinese could climb from the 
lowest step of the official ladder to the higher 
rounds. The principle that good government 
consisted in getting the services of the best 
men, of the ''been nang '' — the ^^ worthy 



68 SUN YAT SEN 

and talented," "■ the good and able "—was 
firmly rooted in the Chinese mind; which 
reasoned that, although there could be no 
degrees, no bachelorships, no doctorates of 
virtue, yet, as there was an intimate con- 
nection between moral and intellectual eleva- 
tion, so the competitive examination afforded 
the best available test of the fittest men to 
govern. The test may have been imperfect, 
crude even, but at least it was honestly ad- 
ministered, and behind it lay the idea that 
government to be effective must be entrusted 
to the fittest, that no pains must be spared 
to discover and reward these, and that, once 
found, the power and responsibility must be 
theirs. The Chinese were free from the de- 
lusion that the qualities which make a capable 
administrator or a wise governor are heredi- 
tary. Never did they hold that the control 
of the Empire should be vested largely in 
the members of one class. Fitness, not birth, 
was the essential, and, as the only method 
of discovering fitness was by the competitive 
examinations, immense importance attached 
to these functions. Thousands of candidates 
attended them, representing every class of 
the community. The very office of Emperor, 
it should be noted, was by no means heredi- 
tary. The pure theory of succession was that 
the best and wisest man in the Empire should 



EISE OF A GEEAT TYEANNY 69 

be nominated. This became so far modified 
in practice that the Emperor selected his 
ablest son, taking no account of priority of 
birth, whilst if the said son failed to show 
conspicuous qualities for governorship, his 
deposition was not very difficult to arrange. 
The military and police maintained were suf- 
ficient to crush merely factious risings, but 
quite inadequate to put down a general rising 
on the part of an indignant people. In a 
word, Chinese government was probably the 
most scientific attempt ever made to secure 
government by aristocracy — using the word 
in its pure sense, apwro<;, the best. 

Then came the Manchus. The last repre- 
sentative of the Ming dynasty had not been 
a success. Probably he was in his own per- 
son a disproof of the adequacy of the aris- 
tocratic theory of government, for he has 
been denounced as being given over to 
sensual indulgence and as inattentive to the 
affairs of state. In any case he was not 
popular. Eebellion raged, and the victorious 
rebel leader, Le Tsze Ching, at last entered 
Peking at the head of his conquering army — 
to find that the Ming Emperor, deserted and 
unsupported, had committed suicide. And 
then occurred one of the tragedies of his- 
tory. One of the Ming Generals, a certain 
Woo San Kwei, was then on the borders of 



70 SUN YAT SEN 

China endeavoring with indifferent success 
to keep off an invasion of the Manchu Tartar 
clans. It was harder apparently to Woo 
San to submit to his rebel countryman than 
to the foreign invader. In any case, he 
sought the Manchu 's aid to oust the usurper. 
It was given. Seven years' war followed — 
seven years compared to which, one authority 
says, the Seven Years' Prussian War was 
a trifle ! At the end the rebels were crushed 
— and the reign of the Manchus began, and 
with it the decadence of the Chinese Empire. 
We have said that the Manchus were 
scrupulous to observe the forms of the 
Chinese Government. More, they made no 
attempt to impugn its theory. The admin- 
istration of the country by the best and best- 
trained men was still, they agreed, desirable. 
The competitive examinations to discover 
who these were continued to be held ^ * under 
distinguished auspices." There was one 
trifling difference, however. The Manchus 
found themselves under the necessity of 
maintaining a huge standing army. Eevolt 
was still smoldering, and had to be put down 
with an iron hand. A huge Tartar garrison 
was massed at Peking. Smaller garrisons 
were appointed at nine of the provincial cap- 
itals and ten other important points. The 
very sight of these garrisons has been for 



EISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 71 

over two hundred years a reminder to the 
Chinese that they were under the heel of a 
foreign dominion, and has served to exacer- 
bate them over and over again. That by 
the way, however. The point is that the 
garrisons proved, with their numerous prog- 
eny, very costly to maintain, and then there 
grew up the system which has since developed 
to a fine art — the sale of public offices. The 
students still competed and held their exam- 
inations, but, if afterwards they desired any 
considerable appointment, they had to pay 
for it. Thus did the Manchus raise their 
revenue ! Corruption spread throughout the 
whole of the Civil Service of China till there 
was no one to corrupt. And with corruption 
came another change. The ancient govern- 
ment of China was marked by a high degree 
of centralization. There was a constant re- 
vision by the Emperor and his ministers of 
the acts of all the military, fiscal and judicial 
services. Governors and mandarins were re- 
movable at his pleasure, and each and all of 
them knew that, at any moment, they might 
be called upon to give an account of their 
stewardship. But with the Manchu ascend- 
ancy this system of centralized control gave 
way to a corrupt feudalism. There ceased 
to be any real check upon the mandarins. 
Huge provinces were at the mercy of some 



72 SUN YAT SEN 

grasping governor, who had only bought his 
appointment to " squeeze '' the people, and 
was, therefore, entitled to '' squeeze '' them 
as hard as he could. For the only official 
remuneration worth thinking of was, as we 
have seen, that which the officials themselves 
blackmailed from the public. Under the 
Manchus, in fact, the Court sold the right to 
** squeeze '' to all scholars who would pay 
for it, and the old Chinese Government, 
which, with all its crudities and imperfec- 
tions, was yet animated by the guiding im- 
pulse of a great idea, was utterly destroyed 
for ever. With the increase of the Manchu 
race, the necessity of providing for them be- 
came apparent. Accordingly they had the 
refusal of the most lucrative appointments 
and were put in control of the most impor- 
tant provinces, with the most populous cities 
and fertile lands. From their decisions there 
was no effective appeal. " In a thousand ways 
they bled the people and practised extortion 
at every possible opportunity. As the cor- 
ruption intensified, so did the standard of 
competence fall, until at last, as the whole 
land passed under the Manchus, the Chinese, 
taught by centuries of custom and religion 
to revere the law and its officers, found that, 
while their idol remained outwardly the 
same, fair seeming and good to look upon, 



EISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 73 

its heart had changed to that of a devil. 
They struggled hard against the Manchus, 
and in spirit never accepted them. South- 
East China, where the present revolution 
took its rise, was ever bitterly anti-Manchu. 
^^ For about forty years," says Mr. Taylor 
Meadows, ^^ after the advent of the Manchu 
dynasty was proclaimed at Peking, the moun- 
taineers and coastlanders of South-Eastern 
China never felt themselves completely and 
hopelessly under its sway; and from that date 
to the present day — during a period of 170 
years — this very portion of China has been 
the great seat of a formidable political so- 
ciety, best known as the ^ San Ho Hwuy ' — 
the Triad Society — the express object of 
which has been the expulsion of the barbarian 
conquerors of their country.'' 

All that time ^' Fan Tsing fuh Ming " re- 
mained their motto (^^ Overthrow the Man- 
chus, re-establish the Mings '')• But the 
Manchus were too strong. They had seized 
the throne at a moment when China was di- 
vided and weakened by long and bitter civil 
war. They kept it by an outward compliance 
with Chinese custom, adroitly altered to suit 
their own policy, and they backed their posi- 
tion with such a military force as the poor 
Chinese were unable to dispute. 

One signal advantage the early Manchus 



74 SUN YAT SEN 

possessed. Their first Emperors were men 
of real ability— able if unscrupulous, realiz- 
ing to tbe full that much depended upon their 
own sagacity and conduct. But as time 
brought a deeper sense of security, a new 
type of ruler appeared — arrogant and idle, 
given over to the trivialities of life, openly 
contemptuous of the people who acknowl- 
edged his sway. This is not surprising. 
The Chinese Emperor, it must be remem- 
bered, is, or rather he was, the ^^ Son of 
Heaven,'' the ^' Supreme Euler," the '^ Au- 
gust Lofty One, ' ' the ^ ^ Celestial Euler, ' ' the 
^^ Solitary Man," the ^^ Buddha of the Pres- 
ent Day "; and, in adulatory addresses, he 
was often hailed the ^ ' Lord of Ten Thousand 
Years." 

^* In harmony with these lofty attributes, 
his subjects," says Sir R. K. Douglas in '^ So- 
ciety in China," ^' when admitted into his 
presence, prostrate themselves in adoration 
on the ground before him, and on a certain 
day in the year he is worshipped in every 
city in the Empire. At daylight, on the day 
in question, the local mandarins assemble in 
the city temple, where, in the central hall, a 
throne is raised on which is placed the im- 
perial tablet. At a given signal the assem- 
bled officials kneel thrice before the throne, 
and nine times strike their heads on the 



RISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 75 

ground as though in the presence of the Su- 
preme Ruler.'' 

^ ^ With the exception of those immediately 
about his person, his subjects are not allowed 
to gaze upon his face. When he goes abroad 
the people are compelled to fall on their faces 
to the ground until his cavalcade has passed 
on, and on all occasions he is to them a mys- 
tery. ' ' 

** The palace, as befitting the abode of so 
exalted a personage, is so placed as effectu- 
ally to cut off its occupants from the rest of 
the Empire. Situated in the ' Forbidden 
City,' it is surrounded with a triple barrier 
of walls. Beyond the inner and arcane en- 
closure is the imperial city, which is en- 
closed by a high wall topped with tiles of the 
imperial yellow color ; and outside that again 
is the Tartar city, which forms the northern 
part of the capital. Strict guard is kept 
night and day at the gates of the Forbidden 
City, and severe penalties are inflicted on all 
unauthorized persons who may dare to enter 
its portals." Only on rare occasions, and 
those almost exclusively occasions of cere- 
mony, does the Emperor pass out of the 
palace grounds. ^* These no doubt present a 
microcosm of the Empire. There are lakes, 
mountains, parks, and gardens in which the 
imperial prisoner can amuse himself, with 



76 SUN YAT SEN 

the boats wMcli ply on tlie artificial water, 
or by joining mimic bunts in miniature for- 
ests; but it is probable that there is not one 
of the millions of China who has not more 
practical knowledge of the Empire than he 
who rules it. Theoretically he is supposed 
to spend his days and nights in the affairs of 
state.'' ^ As Sir Eobert Douglas observes: 
** It is only men of the strongest will and 
keenest intellects who would not rust under 
such conditions, and these qualities are pos- 
sessed as rarely by Emperors as by ordinary 
persons." 

And with the Manchus, once the stimulus 
of their accession had worn off, those quali- 
ties became rare indeed. Vigilance gave 
way to sensual sloth. Stories of vicious de- 
pravity upon the part of Emperor after Em- 
peror became common gossip through China. 
More and more, the central authority slack- 
ened and the mandarins waxed fat as their 
extortions increased. If rebellion was at- 
tempted it was crushed with pitiless force. 
The people were forbidden knowledge. 
"Whereas under the old dispensation complete 
coioies of the law could be cheaply and easily 
procured, a time came when the laws were 
to be known only to the highest officials and 
forbidden to public eyes. In fact, as 

> "Society in China," by Sir R. K. Douglas. 



EISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 77 

the central power relaxed, as decadent Em- 
peror succeeded decadent, so the grip of the 
mandarins upon the people tightened, until 
the vast and complicated machinery of the 
Chinese Government became one great en- 
gine of oppression, whose officers had but one 
idea — the ** squeezing ■ ' of the common 
people. 

There is a certain story, gruesome yet fas- 
cinating, by Edgar Allan Poe, which illus- 
trates vividly the conditions into which the 
Manchu despotism gradually fell. A man 
sick unto death is hypnotized, and while hyp- 
notized and sitting erect in his chair, dies. 
Hours pass and the watchers see no change, 
till they go to rouse him, and find that he is 
dead — dead in the same attitude as when the 
hypnotist commanded him to sit up. It was 
much like this with the Manchu Empire. 
Looking back upon the history of that dy- 
nasty now, it is easy to see that decay had 
set in long ago, and that, though to all out- 
ward appearance strong and erect, its springs 
of action had long since dried up, so that 
the end in fact was not far off. But there 
was this difference between the Manchus and 
Poe's hypnotized man. When the shock of 
outside reality came to the Manchus, they at 
least had sufficient vitality to pull themselves 
together for one last desperate effort — an 



78 SUN YAT SEN 

effort that came within an ace of succeed- 
ing. 

And the shock was the aggression of Eu- 
rope. As the nations became more and more 
convinced of the magnitude of the Chinese 
market, they sent envoys to the Celestial 
Empire in the hope of creating a good un- 
derstanding. The good imderstanding did 
not follow. There ensued instead intermina- 
ble delays, refusals to negotiate, and insane 
restrictions; until at last came the war with 
Great Britain, and British artillery crashed 
into the consciousness of the sleeping Chi- 
nese, who was galvanized into a sudden ac- 
tivity. The blow to the Manchus was stag- 
gering. Their provincial garrisons were de- 
feated and almost destroyed with an ease 
that shook their confidence in the prowess 
and destiny of their great race, and smashed 
its prestige to pieces. They were disgraced 
before their conquered subjects ; but the blow 
saved them, at any rate for a time. The 
Court of Peking was roused as it had not 
been for two hundred years. A season of 
feverish activity followed; inquiries were in- 
stituted as to the condition of the country. 
The Emperor gave frequent audiences to the 
mandarins. There is on record the report of 
an examination by the Emperor Tao-Kuang, 
so full of interest and throwing so valuable 



EISE OF A GEEAT TYEANNY 79 

a light upon the Chinese point of view, that 
we set it out in full : — 



Audience on the 11th Day* 

Emperor. Do you think from the appear- 
ance of things at Kwang-tung that the Brit- 
ish barbarians or any other people will cause 
trouble again? 

Ansiver. No. Britain itself has got noth- 
ing, and when the British barbarians rebelled 
in 1841, they depended entirely on the power 
of the other nations, who, with a view to 
open trade, supported them with funds. In 
the present year the (here follow two words 
which do not make sense with the context, 
** teen te,'' literally ^^ laws and territory "; 
probably ^^ subject territories '' were the 
words used) of Britain yield her no willing 
obedience. 

Emperor. It is plain from this that these 
barbarians always look on trade as their chief 
occupation, and are wanting in any high pur- 
pose of striving for territorial acquisitions. 

Ansiver. At bottom they belong to the 
class of brutes (dogs and horses) ; it is im- 
possible they should have any high purpose. 

Emperor. Hence in their country they 
have now a woman, now a man as their prince 
(wang). It is plain they are not worth at- 



80 SUN YAT SEN 

tending to. Have they got like ns any fixed 
time of service for their soldier's head? 

Answer, Some are changed once in two 
years, some once in three years. Although 
it is the prince of these barharians who sends 
them, they are in reality recommended by 
the body of their merchants. 

Emperor, What goods do the French 
trade in? 

Answer, The wares of the barbarians are 
only camlets, woollen cloth, clocks, watches, 
cottons, and the like. All the countries have 
got them good or bad. 

Emperor, What country's goods are 
dearest? 

Ansiver, They have all got both dear and 
cheap. There is no great difference in their 
prices (of similar articles) ; only with respect 
to the camlets, the French are said to be the 
best. 

Emperor. China has no want of silk 
fabrics and cottons; what necessity is there 
for using foreign cottons in particular? For 
instance, wrappers can be made of yellow or 
pale yellow (for the palace), and people out- 
side could see Nanking clock colored, or blue 
ones. This would look simple and unaf- 
fected; but lately foreign flowered cottons 
have come into use which look very odd. 
Others use foreign cottons for shirts. Now 




o 
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pq :^ 

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:z: 



RISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 81 

observe me — the highest of men — my shirts 
and inner garments are all made of Corean 
cottons. I have never used foreign cottons. 

Answer. Foreign cotton cloth has no sub- 
stance (literally bone), it is not good for 
clothing. 

Emperor. And it does not wash well. 

Answer. Yes, Sire. 

Emperor. I suppose opium is bought and 
sold quite openly in Kwang-tung. 

Answer. I should not dare to deceive 
your Majesty — people do not dare to buy and 
sell it openly, but there is no small quantity 
bought and sold secretly. 

Emperor. It appears to me that in this 
matter too there must be a flourishing period 
and a period of decay. Even if I were to 
inflict severe punishments, I might punish 
to-day and punish again to-morrow, and all 
without benefit. If we wait for two or three 
years — for ^ve or six years — it will of course 
fall into disuse of itself. 

Ansiver. Certainly, Sire. 

Emperor. How is it with the levying and 
payment of the taxes in Kwang-tung? How 
do matters stand as to deficiencies in the dis- 
trict treasuries? 

Ansiver. In Kwang-tung the fixed regu- 
lar land tax is paid up annually; as to the 
miscellaneous taxes — I do not dare to deceive 



82 SUN YAT SEN 

your Majesty — there must have been some 
appropriated for public purposes. 

Emperor, Can these appropriations not 
be avoided then? You will do very well for 
a superintendent of finances. To-morrow 
present your name for an audience. 

Audience oit the 12th Day. 

Emperor, In your opinion is opium 
dearer or cheaper now than in former years I 
(Smiling.) You don't smoke it — I fear you 
cannot tell. 

Answer, The local gentry and literati of 
whom I have inquired state that opium is 
very cheap at present. 

Emperor, Indeed. Why is it cheap "^ 

Answer, Because its quality is not equal 
to what it was formerly. 

Emperor, This, now, is an example of 
prosperity and decay! How could heaven 
and earth long endure an article so destruc- 
tive to human life! So, in the consumption 
of tobacco the Kwang-tung leaf being strong 
tasted, the Singtsze weak, those who have 
accustomed themselves to the strong do not 
of course like the weak. Do you think that 
in future the British barbarians in Hong 
Kong will go on quietly or not? 

Answer, The British barbarians have 



EISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 83 

gone to great expenses in building houses 
with the view of permanently residing there, 
and living in quiet. Besides, the people of 
Hong Kong and its neighborhood took at an 
early period an aversion to these barbarians; 
and local bandits have long been waiting, 
their mouths watering for the place. The 
barbarians are therefore constantly in dread, 
fearing they may lose it. 

Emperor, So they have added to their 
troubles by giving to themselves another in- 
ternal care. However, notwithstanding this, 
they have always got their own country for 
a haunt (literally, nest and den, expressions 
frequently applied to the capitals of foreign 
sovereigns). 

Answer, Yes, Sire. 

Emperor, Have the Governor-General 
and the Governor any difference of opinion 
or not? 

Ansiver, Your slave intreats your Maj- 
esty to set your sacred mind at rest — the 
Governor-General and the Governor not only 
transact their business in strict good faith, 
but in all cases without disagreement. 

Emperor, That is well. What is wanted 
is agreement; frequently the Governor-Gen- 
eral and the Governor in the same province 
are at variance. 

Answer. Your slave, during the many 



84 SUN YAT SEN 

years he has been in Kwang-tung, has never 
witnessed so much concord between the Gov- 
ernor-General and the Governor. 

Emperor. They are both in their best 
years, just the time for exertion ; they ought 
to do their utmost physically and mentally. 
It is right, too, that you and the criminal 
judge, their immediate subordinates, when 
you learn anything of which you fear they 
may not be thoroughly informed, should tell 
them all you know. Are you acquainted with 
the newly appointed judge, Ke shuh tsaou? 

Answer. No, Sire. 

Emperor. He is a very honest, sincere, 
and unaffected man, as you will know after 
you have passed half a year in the same place 
with him. You can make ready for your de- 
parture. How long will you be on the jour- 
ney? 

Answer. Upwards of two months. 

Emperor. I reckon that you will arrive 
about the end of the 11th or the beginning 
of the 12th month. Or, allowing a few days 
more, you will reach Canton about the middle 
of the 12th month. 

Thus far had the Manchu intelligence 
evolved in the middle of the last century. 
Ludicrous as the Emperor's comments ap- 
pear, they yet mark a distinct advance on 



RISE OF A GREAT TYRANNY 85 

his previous attitude, for the curiosity and 
apprehension he evinced was more hopeful 
than the blank and utter indifference it suc- 
ceeded. But, as will be easily understood, 
the statecraft of such a ruler was not equal 
to the needs of the situation — a situation that 
increased in difficulty and complexity. For 
there followed the most formidable rising the 
Manchus had been called upon to face — the 
famous Taiping Rebellion, and then, close 
upon its heels, the war of 1861, with the 
ceding to Britain of the adjacent peninsula 
of Kowloon — events that call for more than 
passing notice, for they both contributed in 
a marked degree to the revolution that has 
recently startled the world. 



IV 
THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 

THE Taiping Kebellion broke out in 
1850. Not till 1864 was it subdued. 
During twelve of the intervening six- 
teen years, Nanking, tbe capital of Southern 
China, was in the hands of the rebels. Over 
a dozen provinces were devastated, hundreds 
of cities were captured. In a score of pitched 
battles the imperial troops suffered defeat. 
Quite obviously Manchu generalship was 
wholly unequal to the task before it. *^ The 
rebels," wrote an officer, ^' increase more 
and more ; they are powerful and fierce, their 
regulations and laws being rigorous and 
clear. Our troops, the more they fight, the 
more they fear! They have not a tincture 
of discipline. Eetreating is easy to them, 
advancing difficult." Small wonder that the 
cry, * * Exterminate the Manchus ! ' ' — a cry, 
by the way, raised during this very revolu- 
tion, and silenced only by the authority of 
Sun Yat Sen — ^began to penetrate into the 
palace of Peking, and broke upon the startled 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 87 

ear of the Emperor with a new signifi- 
cance. 

Aid was yet to come to the Manchus, how- 
ever, and from a strange quarter. While the 
rebellion still raged and threatened, war 
broke out, and once again Britain and France 
determined to punish China — this time per- 
haps not in so righteous a cause. The armies 
that could not hold their own against the 
Taipings offered but a feeble resistance to 
the Allies, who swept all before them, 
marched on Peking, from whence the Court 
had fled, burnt to the ground the famous 
Summer Palace, and, in a word, humbled 
China to the dust. 

It is not surprising that at this juncture, 
with the rebellion rife, with the capital in 
the hands of the foreigner, and the Emperor 
himself a weak debauchee, upon the point 
of death, the view gained ground among the 
literati and writers that the dynasty was 
doomed, or, as they put it, with admirable 
politeness, '' It had exhausted the mandate 
of heaven.'' The fortunes of the Manchus 
looked desperate indeed. Their armies 
broken, their prestige shattered, exiled from 
their own Court, their very lives were in con- 
stant danger. It was at this crisis that a 
new personality made itself felt amongst 
them — a personality destined to exercise a 



88 SUN YAT SEN 

decisive influence on the fortunes of the 
country. 

Upon the death of the Emperor Tao- 
Kuang in 1850 — ^he whose engaging conver- 
sations we have recorded in the last chapter 
— ^his eldest surviving son, aged nineteen, as- 
cended the throne under the reign-title of 
Hsien-Feng. The period of mourning over, 
a decree was issued constituting the Em- 
peror's harem. All beautiful Manchu maid- 
ens were to present themselves at the Im- 
perial Household office with a view to a first 
selection being made. The Chinese, it will 
be noted, were exempt from contributing to 
the choice, owing to the fact that the royal 
race persistently intermarried — an offence 
they held in abhorrence. Among those who 
came in tripping obedience to the nuptial 
command was the young Yehonala, the 
daughter of a cadet branch of the royal fam- 
ily. The inner economy of the Manchu 
household decrees that the mother of the Em- 
peror should select her son's consorts, and 
Yehonala found favor with the old lady. She 
was appointed a concubine of the rank of 
Kuei Jen, or ^* honorable person''; and, 
launched on her career at Court, she did her 
utmost to gain the goodwill of every one who 
could serve an ambition that was already in- 
ordinate. 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 89 

She had not long to wait. The Emperor 
was childless and known to be in broken 
health, and when, therefore, she presented 
him with a son, the event was one of national 
importance. The authority she obtained as 
mother of the heir apparent was instantly- 
felt. Her colleague, the Empress Consort 
(who was of course the Emperor's official 
wife), took little or no active interest in the 
business of government. The Emperor, 
stricken with paralysis, soon broke down 
completely, and Yehonala became the real 
ruler of the Chinese Empire. All the busi- 
ness of the imperial city and of the Empire 
came to depend upon her word, and in a 
country where no woman is supposed 
to rule, a young girl of twenty-two was 
paramount. 

It is strangely interesting to watch the first 
manifestations of the fierce spirit that for 
sixty years was to control the destinies of 
China. At once she arrested the downward 
course of things. She stopped, always of 
course in the Emperor's name, the negotia- 
tions for peace with Britain and France, and 
issued the most vigorous edict which had pro- 
ceeded from the Manchu throne for years. 
It explained that : — ' ' Any further forbear- 
ance on our part would be a dereliction of 
our duty to the Empire, so that we have now 



90 SUN YAT SEN 

commanded our armies to attack them — i.e., 
the barbarians— with all possible energy, and 
we have now directed the local gentry to or- 
ganize trained bands, and with them either 
to join in the attack or to block the bar- 
barians' advance. Hereby we make offer of 
the following rewards: For the head of a 
black barbarian 50 taels, and for the head of 
a white barbarian 100 taels ; for the capture 
of a barbarian leader, alive or dead, 500 
taels ; and for the seizure or destruction of a 
barbarian vessel 5,000 taels. The inhabitants 
of Tientsin are reputed brave. Let them 
now come forward and rid us of these pesti- 
lential savages, either by open attack or by 
artifice. We are no lovers of war, but all 
our people must admit that this has been 
forced on us.'' 

*' The barbarians' superiority," another 
edict explained, ^^ lies in their firearms, but 
if we could only bring them to a hand-to-hand 
engagement they will be unable to get their 
artillery to bear, and thus shall our victory 
be assured. The Mongolian Manchu horse- 
men are quite useless for this kind of war- 
fare, but the men of Hupei and Ssii-ch'uan 
are as agile as monkeys and adepts at the 
use of cover in secret approaches. Let them 
but surprise these bandits once, and their 
rout is inevitable . . . for bravery and 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 91 

good service there will be great rewards. A 
most important decree." 

Shortsighted and futile as these decrees 
appear, there breathed in them a new spirit 
of resolution and of purpose that had an im- 
mediate effect upon the Chinese tempera- 
ment, and raised their real author high in 
official estimation. True, they were followed 
by an inglorious surrender and an almost 
abject peace — an inevitable result that states- 
men would have foreseen. But it is not al- 
ways statecraft and a wide vision of affairs 
that impresses Eastern, or for the matter of 
that Western, peoples, so much as tenacity 
and pluck. Yehonala soon gave plenty of 
evidence of both these qualities. At Jehol, 
where the Emperor lay dying, affairs had 
fallen somewhat under the dominion of 
Prince Yi, with whom were associated as 
Grand Councillors the Prince Tuan Hua and 
the imperial clansman Su Shun. These three 
noblemen, recognizing that the Emperor's 
end was near and that a Regency would be 
necessary, determined on securing that power 
for themselves. Prince Yi was nominally the 
leader of this conspiracy, but its instigator 
. was Su Shun. Su Shun had an immense for- 
tune. It had been at his instance that the 
Secretaries of the Board of Revenue had been 
cashiered on a charge of making illicit profits. 



92 SUN YAT SEN 

Upon tMs accusation he had obtained the 
arrest of over one hundred notables and rich 
merchants, and kept them in custody of no 
gentle kind until they had been ransomed 
with enormous sums. It was thus that there 
was founded a fortune so enormous that, as 
we shall see, it survived even the extrava- 
gance of the Chinese Court for over half a 
century. 

There can be no doubt that Su Shun's 
possession of this vast fortune was no incon- 
siderable factor in shaping the conduct of 
Yehonala. Apparently she made no effort 
to combat the influence of the three con- 
spirators on the dying Emperor, but she 
thoughtfully abstracted the seal which, kept 
in the personal custody of the Emperor and 
bearing the characters *^ lawfully trans- 
mitted authority," is absolutely necessary 
to establish the authenticity of the first edict 
of a new reign, confident that, when the death 
of the Emperor came, the advantage would 
remain with her. When the Emperor passed 
away, Su Shun and his friends found them- 
selves saddled with another dilemma. Either 
as Eegents they had to escort the royal bier 
back to Peking or to outrage etiquette and 
opinion by leaving it to take care of itself 
and hurrying back to the capital. They 
shrank from this course, which would have 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 93 

ranged against them both Chinese and Man- 
chu feeling. This gave Yehonala her chance. 
The funeral cortege necessarily made slow 
progress. Hers was rapid. She reached the 
capital some days before the Kegents, and 
at once busied herself with the task of giving 
them a warm reception, enlisting very readily 
the help of Pince Kung, the Emperor's uncle, 
whom, as she ascertained, the conspirators 
intended to execute. When Su Shun and his 
friends arrived at Peking they found Yeho- \ 
nala in possession. The troops, the nobles, ^ 
the officials, all were on her side. They were 
seized and imprisoned. Pince Yi and Prince 
Yuan were ^' permitted to commit suicide,'' 
and Su Shun was decapitated. Thus did Ye- 
honala inaugurate her reign — nominally, 
that of her son — of *' All-Pervading Tran- 
quillity! " 

At first the words seemed not ill-chosen. 
Peace was concluded with the Allies. The 
Taipings were defeated and finally crushed 
by Gordon, who lent his services to the 
Chinese Government. A wise ruler would 
have seized the opportunity to inaugurate 
some of those reforms that, it was even then 
glaringly apparent, China stood in urgent 
need of. But the Empress Dowager recked 
little of reform. She was a typical Man- 
chu, bold, alert, resourceful, but knowing lit- 



94 SUN YAT SEN 

tie and caring less for foreign ideas or West- 
ern notions. She was on the throne of China, 
mistress of the vastest empire in the world. 
To cement her power she had the vast for- 
tune of Su Shnn, some of whose millions, it 
is said, still lie in the vaults at the palace.^ 
Little by little her authority grew, until it 
transcended the power of any of the Manchu 
Emperors of the past. It became a danger- 
ous matter to oppose her will. Those who did 
so were one by one removed. Prince Kung 
was the first to feel her displeasure. The 
incident is thus related by Messrs. Bland and 
Backhouse in their ^* China under the Em- 
press Dowager.'' ^^ In a moment of absent- 
mindedness or bravado Prince Kung ven- 
tured to rise from his knee during an audi- 
ence, thus violating a fundamental rule of 
etiquette originally instituted to guard the 
Sovereign against any sudden attack. The 
attendant eunuchs promptly informed their 
Majesties " (who, it should be noted, spoke 
to their ministers from behind a curtain), 
** whereupon the Empress Dowager called 
loudly for help, exclaiming that the Prince 
was about to execute some evil treachery 
against the person of the Eegents. The 

^They were, at all events, found there on the return of 
the Court to Peking in 1900, after the flight following the 
Boxer rebellion. 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 95 

guards rushed in and Prince Kung was or- 
dered to leave the royal presence." Later 
he was suspended from his high office, *^ be- 
cause, '^ said the edict, ^' his rebellious 
and usurping tendencies must be sternly- 
checked. '' Others were less fortunate than 
Prince Kung. The Empress Tzu An, her co- 
Eegent, yielding and conciliatory to a degree, 
yet lived to incur the Empress Dowager's 
displeasure. She fell ill of a sudden and 
mysterious sickness. Her death was gen- 
erally attributed to poison, and no one had 
any doubts as to the poisoner. 

Blacker deeds than poison have been es- 
tablished against the Empress Dowager. 
Her son, when he attained his majority, thus 
ending the Regency, refused to submit state 
documents for her inspection. There were 
serious differences — and an early death of 
the Emperor. ^^ All commentators,'' say 
Messrs. Bland and Backhouse, ^' agree that 
the Empress Dowager encouraged the youth- 
ful Emperor's tendencies to dissipated hab- 
its, but when these had resulted in a serious 
illness she allowed it to work havoc with his 
delicate constitution without providing him 
with such medical assistance as might have 
been available." Worse remains. The 
young Emperor left a wife, A-lu-te, who at 
the time of his death was enceinte. Now, in 



96 SUN YAT SEN 

the event of the Emperor's child succeeding 
his dead father, the Empress Dowager's 
power would have been gone, because the 
Empress A-lu-te would have then become 
Empress Dowager and would have secured 
the Regency. Accordingly, the Dowager 
Empress insisted on the election of another 
infant Emperor at all costs and in violation 
of the law of dynastic succession. The infant 
son of Prince Ch'un was selected for the 
throne. A-lu-te, her own child born, com- 
mitted suicide, and the ^^ Old Buddha," as 
Yehonala had come to be called by the peo- 
ple, was left in supreme authority. 

But, jealous as she was of power, there 
were those who obtained enormous influence 
over her and through her on the Empire. 
One of the grossest evils of Chinese govern- 
ment — an evil that under the Empress Dow- 
ager obtained dreadful dimensions — is the 
demoralizing influence of the eunuch system 
on the Court and its immediate entourage. 
There has scarcely been a reformer in China 
who has not placed first the abolition of this 
system, now swept away at last with the 
dynasty on which it battened. It is difficult, 
nay impossible, to say how much mischief 
has been caused in the past by these irre- 
sponsible advisers of the Throne. It is said 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 97 

that the Boxer risings, and the support given 
them by the Empress Dowager, were both 
dictated by the part which her favorite eu- 
nnch, Li-Lien- Ying, played in fomenting 
opinion against the foreigners. Who can 
tell? But the power of the eunuchs, ubiqui- 
tous and insistent, with their constant access 
to the person of the Sovereign, their intimate 
knowledge of that Sovereign's tastes and 
moods, was no doubt immense, and through- 
out the Empress Dowager's reign, while she 
remained utterly irresponsive to representa- 
tions from outside the Forbidden City, while, 
for instance, she could not be moved by the 
earnest appeal of men so capable as Li- 
Hung-Chang or Yuan-Shi-Kai, yet to the 
whispers of the palace eunuchs she lent a 
ready ear. 

The inner history of the Celestial Empire 
and of the Manchu dynasty is inextricably 
bound up with the eunuchs and their far- 
reaching intrigues. During the half -century 
of the Empress Dowager's rule, the power 
behind the throne, literally a power of dark- 
ness in high places, was that of her favorite 
chamberlains. There were not wanting obvi- 
ous explanations of their influence. It was 
said that the chief eunuch, Te Hai, only nom- 
inally answered to that description, and 
that, in fact, the Empress Dowager had had 



98 SUN YAT SEN 

a son by Mm — a son whose birth pamphle- 
teers record with much detail — ^who is said 
to be still abroad in the land. More, strange 
and dreadful stories of nameless depravities 
committed in the palace spread through 
Southern China. The licentious festivities 
of the Court were the subject of many a 
rival ballad. Tales of wild orgies began to 
be circulated. No one can doubt that the 
Empress Dowager, now she felt her position 
established, surrendered herself to a life of 
unrestrained excesses, tempered only by such 
attention to affairs as was necessary to re- 
tain her own supremacy. Eemonstrance 
proved vain. The cynical and selfish woman 
who sat upon the throne of China was an 
adept in misleading opinion, and to the mem- 
orials of the Censor she replied by edicts 
impressive only to those who did not know 
the facts. ^ ^ At a time like this, ' * she wrote, 
*^ when rebellions are still raging, and our 
people are in sore distress, when our treas- 
uries are empty, and our revenues insufficient 
for the needs of government, our hearts are 
heavy with sorrowful thoughts, and must be 
so, especially as long as His late Majesty's 
remains have not yet been borne to their final 
resting-place. How, then, could we possibly 
permit such a state of things as the Censor 
describes! '^ 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 99 

And so tlie solemn farce went on. In ad- 
mirable language the Empress enjoined vir- 
tue, and continued to practise the most 
flagrant vice. And outside the Forbidden 
City millions of impoverished Chinese 
worked their fingers to the bone that they 
might minister to her depraved pleasures. 
For those pleasures the public services were 
drained of money; the very Navy itself was, 
on the advice of the chief eunuch, starved 
for years in order that the Empress might 
continue the building of her Summer Palace, 
and once again the arms of China had to 
suffer dishonor — this time by Japan — to 
gratify the luxurious whims of a woman, the 
price of whose self-indulgence was the degra- 
dation of her people. 

And all the time the tigress was on the 
pounce, quick to scent hostility to herself and 
unsparing in her measures to suppress it. 
She had that indescribable quality which in- 
spires blind steadfast obedience in others, 
and she was an excellent judge of men, cool 
in danger and never deceived by adulation. 
Add to this the fact that the great masses of 
China were still sunk in fathomless igno- 
rance, without leaders, with no clue to the 
reason of their own impoverishment and 
misery, unconscious indeed of anything be- 
yond, and it becomes less miraculous that this 



100 SUN YAT SEN 

indomitable woman sat secure on her throne 
—the last of a doomed dynasty. 

But keen as was her vision, its range was 
narrow and restricted, and the Old Buddha 
did not perceive that there were at work in 
China forces that could not be disregarded 
with any safety. First, there was a new 
movement stirring among the choked popu- 
lace of Canton, a movement that was charged 
with all the old hostility to the Manchus, but 
tinged also with broad democratic ideas that 
went far beyond the restoration of another 
dynasty. It has been that movement which 
Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the Carnot of the revolu- 
tion, has guided to victory. Essentially dem- 
ocratic in its character, it saw no deliverance 
for China unless the people were roused. 

Far removed from it in sympathy, but yet 
of unmistakable significance, was the grow- 
ing feeling among men of a different stamp 
that if the partition of China was to be pre- 
vented, the time for reorganization had ar- 
rived. It was apparent, woefully apparent, 
even to Viceroys so cautious as Li-Hung- 
Chang or Yuan-Shi-Kai, that the reforming 
hand was needed, not only so far as the Army 
and Navy were concerned, but even more 
as regards China's educational services; and 
as they found all their plans defeated and 
their influence checkmated by the intrigues of 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 101 

the palace eunuchs, or when they were 
snubbed for their pains by the Empress, still 
unyielding and undiscerning, they asked 
themselves, in despair of the ancient regime, 
if the time had not come for a Limited Mon- 
archy and Representative Government. By 
degrees the number of dissatisfied officials 
increased. All that was vital, all that was 
patriotic in the Chinese bureaucracy ranged 
itself on the side of reform. A time had 
come when its urgency could no longer be 
denied, and the ablest and most trusted serv- 
ants of the Executive besought the Throne 
to put its house in order. 

What was the result! Merely this: that 
they were marked men to be got rid of at 
the first opportunity; and the last state of 
that bureaucracy, in which only the effete and 
the decadent could succeed, was worse than 
the first. The Eeform Party it was who 
gained what officialdom lost. 

But though the Empress remained deaf to 
all appeals, that party found an enthusiastic 
and powerful convert. 

Kuang Hsii, the son of Prince Ch'un, had 
come to the throne, and at one moment of 
his reign it seemed as if there were at long 
last to be some relief for the parched mil- 
lions of China, some hope again for the lost 
grandeur of the Middle Kingdom. For the 



102 SUN YAT SEN 

young Emperor lent an ear to those who in- 
sisted that it was only by change, drastic 
and immediate, that the deplorable state of 
the country and her defences could be 
amended. Kuang Hsti has been described, 
for some strange reason, as a decadent, per- 
haps because that word is a convenient term 
of opprobrium to describe those whose aims 
we dislike. The policy he initiated, however, 
smacked little of decadence. Its faults were 
those of youth, of inexperience, of an energy 
that recked too little of consequences and 
that despised its enemies too heartily to 
measure their strength. 

For ten long years after his accession, and 
although the Empress Dowager had gone 
through the pretence of resignation, she still 
held the reins in her hands. True, she did 
not consult either ministers or scholars. Her 
Court came to consist only of eunuchs, a few 
Manchus, and one or two ministers of the 
imperial household. The most serious study 
she engaged in was that of private theat- 
ricals, for which she had a passion. But she 
still pulled the wires, and her veto continu- 
ally blocked the way. All the ministers of the 
first and second degree were her nominees; 
all were feeble and aged men, dreading the 
idea of change, which would end their posi- 
tions, and bent only on putting difficulties in 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 103 

the way of reform. The Emperor, in fact, 
had no power. At every step he was check- 
mated. He saw his country humiliated again 
and again. Port Arthur, Ta-Lien-Wan and 
Formosa were lost in succession. The Em- 
press Dowager was unconcerned. The Sum- 
mer Palace and her pleasures were left her 
and for the rest she was indifferent. But 
as it happened, the Emperor did care. ** I 
will never be the ruler of a perishing em- 
pire,'' he declared. ** If I have no power, 
I had better abdicate." First, however, he 
determined he would make one effort for his 
people while there was yet time. 

He reasoned that if he allowed things to 
take their course, the ruin of the Empire was 
inevitable. A bold policy might save the sit- 
uation. Even if it failed, the attempt would 
be worth making and might arouse the peo- 
ple. There is something infinitely pathetic in 
the struggle of this young man, surrounded 
on all sides with the hostile agents of the 
Empress Dowager, with his ministers thwart- 
ing him at every step, his very servants 
spying on his conversations, able only to take 
counsel with his friends by stealth and at 
odd moments, with scarcely one honest and 
responsible minister ready to help him, and 
with the whole Court ready to betray him at 
the first false step. Despite all, he persisted. 



104 SUN YAT SEN 

He was under no illusions as to the probabil- 
ity of his own defeat, but he was resolved to 
take the risk. 

'' Let the farce of ruling go," he wrote; 
** let poison, let assassination come. With 
death, I shall deliver up my imperial charge. 
With death, I shall report myself to my an- 
cestors. With death, I shall be worthy of my 
400,000,000 subjects. I would rather be as- 
sassinated and have my will made known to 
the people, than be a prince under a foreign 
yoke, or have my life saved to serve as a 
menial, and bear the disgrace of a lost em- 
pire. From the time I was made to rule ten 
years ago, I have secretly been longing all 
the time for an opportunity to act. I hated 
the idea of losing Annam. Again, I was in- 
dignant at the idea of being shorn of Man- 
churia and Formosa, and a third time I was 
indignant at being shorn of Kiaochow and 
Port Arthur. My mind being full of indigna- 
tion, I deeply pondered over all the circum- 
stances, and I saw no other course but to 
risk my life on behalf of the Empire." 

The Emperor, in a word, staked everything 
on reform. Once determined, he acted with 
vigor and with almost open defiance of the 
Empress Dowager. He abolished the old ex- 
amination system, which had been in force 
since the days of the Sing dynasty, and sub- 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 105 

stituted papers on practical subjects, includ- 
ing a knowledge of the history of other coun- 
tries and of contemporary politics. He 
sought to provide for the reorganization of 
the effete Manchu troops of the metropolitan 
province and for the founding of colleges and 
high schools in the provinces to correspond 
to the University at Peking. More, he ar- 
ranged for the publication of official gazettes 
all over the Empire. These gazettes were 
to be official newspapers, and their object the 
diffusion of general knowledge. Abuses were 
to be exposed by their means, and opinions 
freely expressed, and the Government were 
to subsidize the organs. Nothing, in fact, 
would suffice for the long-imprisoned energy 
of the Emperor. Eailway and mining bu- 
reaus were to be established in Peking. A 
Translation Department was inaugurated to 
publish standard works in foreign languages 
on Political Economy and Natural Science. 
The Navy was to be thoroughly overhauled 
and brought up to date. All that China under 
the Manchus had despised and rejected, all 
that China had to learn from Western na- 
tions, all that she stood most in need of, 
was at last to be placed within her reach. 
And for a moment the reformers dared to 
hope. But alas ! they reckoned without their 
host. The Old Buddha, when she heard of 



106 SUN YAT SEN 

these reforms, was en retraite at her Summer 
Palace. She uttered not one word against 
them. 

Secretly she expressed her approval of 
them to the Emperor, and as secretly organ- 
ized opposition to them, checkmating the 
young enthusiast wherever possible by play- 
ing on the prejudices of antiquated officials, 
by ridiculing the new plans, and by organiz- 
ing against them all the vested interests that 
they threatened to end for the common good. 
The Manchus, alarmed beyond expression at 
some of the proposals, besought her to return 
and again conduct the Government. 

The time was not yet, she told them — they 
must wait. At last came a decree abolishing 
a number of sinecures and useless Govern- 
ment posts, and the indignation at the Em- 
peror's action rose to boiling-point. He be- 
came aware, bitterly aware, of the storm 
threatening him, and determined on bold 
measures. He realized that so long as the 
Empress Dowager remained in the field 
against him he would, at the best, find his 
policy negatived; at the worst, he would be 
supplanted. He determined to seize the Em- 
press Dowager and to kill Jung Lu, her chief 
agent and favorite eunuch, who was conspir- 
ing against him. It is said that the plan was 
overheard by another eunuch, who betrayed 



THE LAST OF THE MANCHUS 107 

it to the enemy. Who can tell? The Em- 
peror himself, to the day of his death, and on 
his very death-bed, blamed Yuan-Shi-Kai, 
with whom he entrusted the arrangements, 
and who betrayed him instantly to the Em- 
press. 

It is urged that the betrayal can, as a mat- 
ter of policy, be justified: that the Emperor 
had gone too far, and that the Manchus 
would have had the Old Buddha back in any 
case. Perhaps there is a case to be made 
out in defence of Yuan's action on these lines, 
though the Reform Party in China have 
never ceased to execrate the act. In any case 
it ruined the Emperor. He was seized, im- 
prisoned, and virtually made to abdicate. 
The Empress Dowager was back on the 
throne, and the chance of reform from within 
went by for ever, and with it the last hope of 
preserving the Manchu dynasty. 



V 

THE STEUGaLE 

THE present reform movement, although 
simmering for many years, fonnd con- 
crete expression in 1895 by the forma- 
tion of a *^ Young China '' Party in Canton. 
Sun Yat Sen was an early adherent, and 
speedily became a prominent member; a 
peaceful reform was desired; letters couched 
in temperate terms were forwarded to the 
Throne pointing out the serious state of mind 
of the people, and stating what was required 
to insure good government. The essence of 
the movement was the establishment of a 
form of constitutional government to sup- 
plement the corrupt and worn-out system 
under which China was being ruled. These 
petitions were taken no notice of for a time. 
The Government were at the moment en- 
gaged in warding off the advance of the 
Japanese upon Peking, and it was only after 
the Japanese question was settled that the 
petitioners for reform were denounced as 
traitors and their suppression commanded. 

108 



THE STRUGGLE 109 

It was evident that force would be the only 
means by which the Manchu rulers could be 
brought to terms, and as soon as this deci- 
sion was arrived at men and money were to 
hand. A large number of disbanded soldiers, 
after the war with the Japanese, were in Can- 
ton. The reformers enlisted these men in 
their service, and upon a certain day in 
October, 1895,' a plan was arranged for the 
capture of Canton, and the disposal of the 
authorities, but without bloodshed if pos- 
sible. Arms, ammunition, and dynamite 
were accumulated ; soldiers were posted ready 
to fall upon the city, and a strong force of 
some four hundred men were to join them 
from Hong Kong. 

The reform committee were assembled on 
the afternoon of the day before that chosen 
for the rising, when news came that the in- 
tentions of the reformers were discovered. 
Some of the soldiers fled, others were caught, 
the committee escaped as best they could; the 
contingent from Hong Kong were arrested 
on reaching Canton by steamer, and Sun, 
after many vicissitudes, reached Macao; 
thence he proceeded to Hong Kong and left 
for Honolulu, as related before. Since then 
several armed risings eventuated. The great 
desire of the reformers was to obtain pos- 
session of an arsenal; the reason being that 



110 SUN YAT SEN 

although they could buy arms, guns, and am- 
munition, the ammunition was soon ex- 
hausted, and there was no ready means of 
replenishing the store. More than one of the 
risings collapsed from this cause; and, just 
when victory was in sight, the news that there 
was no more ammunition available where- 
with to carry on the conflict caused the re- 
formers' army to desist, retreat and dis- 
band. 

In another carefully planned rising, 
** Black Flag *' troops were collected and 
assembled in a valley surrounded by a cir- 
cle of hills, inland from Macao, and within 
striking distance of Canton; the passes in 
the hills were seized and held by the rebel 
soldiers, whose presence was prevented being 
noised abroad by neither entrance nor exit 
being allowed to any one. Here the troops 
awaited their leader and his officers. The 
officers consisted of trained soldiers from 

1 may not yet say from whence they 

came. The contingent of officers, to the 
number of forty, assembled in Hong Kong, 
and Sun set out to join them, but to his 
chagrin and the discomfiture of his plans he 
was not allowed to land. Whilst on board the 
boat in Hong Kong harbor, however, he got 
the news that two of his trusted intimate 
supporters (his acting secretary and treas- 



THE STRUGGLE 111 

urer), travelling by an earlier steamer, had 
been prevented landing in Hong Kong and 
taken on to Singapore, where they were 
arrested and found to have a large sum of 
money npon them (really the reformers' 
treasury). Sun had to go on to Singapore, 
and after long and patient interviews he 
succeeded in proving that the money was for 
commercial purposes and got it returned to 
him. The delay, however, was fatal to the 
projected expedition. 

When Sun returned to Hong Kong he 
found the officers had departed, that the sol- 
diers were still cooped up in the retreat in 
the hills, and as he could not join them, 
being carefully watched, he had instead to 
send a message to the troops to the effect 
that they were to march straight across the 
country and join him out on the coast farther 
north — a march of many hundreds of miles. 
These adventurous men did so, brushing 
aside several attacks upon them, and met 
Sun at the appointed place on the coast. 
The troops were then disbanded for the time 
being, and went away ** resolved to meet 
some other day." 

Another military expedition took place 
from the south, some three years ago, from 
the Annam border, when the reformers' 
troops spread over Kwang-si and Kwang- 



112 SUN YAT SEN 

tung provinces and threatened Canton, again 
in the hopes of gaining possession of an 
arsenal. Success at first crowned their ef- 
forts; the inhabitants welcomed them every- 
where, but the same nemesis overtook them, 
for the ammunition gave out as Canton was 
just within their grasp. 

The last great effort was in 1911. The 
outbreak occurred at Wu-chang, on the Yang- 
tse river, just above Hankow, with the result 
we know. The outbreak occurred in conse- 
quence of an attempt to disarm the regular 
troops, a circumstance which requires some 
explanation. The foreign-drilled troops of 
China had increased in numbers, in equip- 
ment, and efficiency during late years under 
the able direction of Yuan-Shih-Kai until 
- they numbered, in the beginning of the year 
1911, some 130,000 men. That these men 
were well trained is admitted everywhere, 
and their courage and efficiency were put to 
an early test during the Boxer Eising, when 
they were attacked by the naval contingent 
of mixed European troops in their attempted 
march from Tientsin to Peking. 

The Chinese soldiers put up so good a 
fight that the foreign troops had to retire; 
before superior numbers it is true, but all 
the foreign officers were impressed with the 
valor and intelligence with which the Chinese 



THE STRUGGLE 113 

fought. Had the foreign-drilled army con- 
tinued to be content with Manchu rule, the 
hopes of the reformers to gain their ends 
would have been hopeless. Sun Yat Sen's 
doctrine of freedom had, however, prevailed 
with the officers even in the highest ranks; 
and as long as three years ago he was aware 
that well-nigh half the foreign-drilled army 
were ready to support his cause, and by 
January, 1911, three-fourths of the army 
were pledged to help the reformers. The 
Government authorities, well informed al- 
ways, had come to know of the changed tem- 
per of the troops, and began to disarm and 
disband the suspected regiments. This was 
successfully done at Nanking and elsewhere. 
At Hankow and Wu-chang two regiments 
were also disarmed, but a third refused to 
give up their arms, and the fight began. The 
rebellion broke out some nine months before 
the selected date; Sun Yat Sen was abroad 
in America, much to his chagrin. He could 
not reach China by way of the Pacific, as he 
was being carefully watched. So he found 
his way surreptitiously to New York and 
thence to London, accompanied by General 
Homer Lea, the well-known author of '' The 
Valor of Ignorance, ' ' who had become so de- 
voted to Sun and his cause that he left his 
home, although in delicate health, determined 



114 SUN YAT SEN 

to proceed to Clima and assist in tlie organi- 
zation of the reformers' army. "Whilst in 
London Sun saw statesmen, soldiers, sailors, 
bankers, and other influential men, with re- 
sults which will be known in the near future. 
He left London for Paris November 20, 
1911. In Singapore he met with an enthu- 
siastic reception from his fellow-countrymen, 
and more important still, perhaps, his coun- 
trywomen. In Hong Kong, forbidden terri- 
tory to him for many years, he was allowed to 
land, and proceeded from thence to Shang- 
hai, where again he was afforded a hearty 
welcome. The Provisional Eeform Govern- 
ment set up in Nanking invited him to be- 
come their President, a position he at first 
declined, but ultimately, to the great joy of 
the people, reluctantly consented to accept. 
The subsequent doings of this party are com- 
mon knowledge to-day, and the forbearance, 
the patriotic spirit in which the temporary 
Eepublican Government, under Sun's direc- 
tion, has conducted affairs has gained the 
approbation and admiration of the whole 
world. At the moment of writing Sun has 
retired from the presidency. Three times 
did he press upon Yuan-Shih-Kai to take up 
the position in his stead, and at last suc- 
ceeded in persuading him to do so. The vice- 
presidency is announced to have been offered 



THE STRUGGLE 115 

to, and accepted by, General Li- Yuan-Hung. 
This gallant soldier led the Republican 
troops to victory after victory in the fight- 
ing around Hankow and established their su- 
periority in the field. General Li, by his 
moderation, his protection of the lives and 
property of non-combatants, his avoidance 
of reprisals upon his enemies, as much as 
by his skilful generalship, has gained uni- 
versal respect and esteem. Sun's friends 
and well-wishers, in other words most of the 
civilized world, are anxiously asking: What 
about Sun! What is his position to be? To 
those who know him intimately his behavior 
is what was expected of him. Self-seeking 
is foreign to his very nature; publicity plays 
no part in the life of this extraordinary man. 
Although he has visited and declared his be- 
lief before many audiences in many coun- 
tries, Sun's desire is, and always has been, 
to be left out of the picture. He loves his 
neighbor more than himself, and he puts his 
country before all. 

Sun considers his life's work accom- 
plished, and he leaves his country to be gov- 
erned, as he himself affirms, by abler hands 
than his. The acknowledgment of Sun's 
great work has been tardily admitted by the 
** authorities " and the Press. By some of 
these his very name was withheld from pub- 



116 SUN YAT SEN 

lication as long as possible, and when men- 
tioned by others it was mostly in terms of 
something akin to amusement at his pre- 
sumption. In conversation he was smilingly 
alluded to as '^ your troublesome friend.'' 
It is to be hoped that Sun's forbearance is 
for China's good; that it is to his credit 
all allow ; but the future alone can decide the 
question of whether China will be more ably 
conducted through her troubles without his 
presence and control in the councils of the 
country. That he may be called to high office 
in the immediate future is more than prob- 
able; that he will accept it if his country 
calls is a foregone conclusion; but it will be 
necessity and not choice that will induce him 
to resume the presidency he has just re- 
signed. 

The chief reason of Sun Yat Sen being 
held up to something approaching ridicule 
by the Legations, the officials of the Imperial 
Maritime Customs, the Consuls, the Old 
China hands, and the ^* authorities " on 
" things Chinese," who advised the Press in 
Europe, was that a republic in China was an 
impossibility, and that any man who could 
think of such a thing must be a dreamer, a 
faddist, and a danger to China. When the 
revolution broke out in November, 1911, the 
idea that it was serious was ridiculed by 



THE STRUGGLE 117 

those whom the Press consulted in the mat- 
ter. 

These ^^ authorities '' stated that a revolu- 
tion of the kind in China occurred every 
fifty years, that one was now due, that the 
present outbreak was merely a ^' recurring 
row,'' and that the men concerned in it, and 
Sun Yat Sen in particular, were of no im- 
portance in the eyes of the Chinese Govern- 
ment, the foreign Legations, the Customs 
officials, and the bankers, etc., in China. The 
true reason of this belief was that the rep- 
resentatives of the Press consulted men 
whose experience of China was confined to 
Government ways and doings or to the as- 
sertions of foreigners in China in touch with 
officials. Another almost universally stated 
and credited opinion was that the Chinese, 
saturated with worship of a throne and re- 
spect for its edicts, could never become a 
republic. Moreover, that they were not 
ready for a republic, being wholly uneducated 
in the ways of government. A titular sov- 
ereign, a '' haloed " being hidden away from 
them and rendered powerless to rule, was 
what the Chinese wanted in the opinion of 
' ' Old China hands. ' ' There has been a being 
of the kind in China for many a day. The 
Emperor has been a myth, '' a heavenly 
body" that could not be looked upon, far 



118 SUN YAT SEN 

less approached. When drawing np the con- 
stitution of the College of Medicine in Hong 
Kong, and being at the time quite new to 
China and the ways of the people, I sug- 
gested that Queen Victoria and the Emperor 
of China should be asked to be patrons. My 
suggestion was received with laughter by my 
more experienced colleagues, and I was in- 
formed that ^' I might get Queen Victoria, 
but the Emperor of China was a god, and 
you would have to write to heaven to get 
the Emperor nominated." In the earlier 
days my wife and myself used to deprecate 
a republic when discussing the matter with 
Sun. Living as we do under the sway of a 
*^ crowned democracy," we could imagine no 
more perfect form of government, and tried 
to persuade Sun to the same. 

Many a long discussion was held trying 
to turn Sun from his purpose, but gradually, 
as years went on, we were persuaded that 
a monarchy in China was an impossibility. 
Even a titular monarch on the throne meant, 
in accordance with Chinese custom, a dow- 
ager empress or a mother-in-law at the head 
of the house, with attendant eunuchs and all 
the environment of princes of the royal clan. 
A suggestion that the old Ming dynasty 
might be revived Sun was able to cope with. 
He had also thought of that; he had per- 



THE STRUGGLE 119 

sonally investigated the conditions of the de- 
scendants of the last Ming Emperor and 
found them quiet work-a-day people, earning 
their daily bread and totally unfit, as they 
were unwilling, to take up the duties of a 
throne or ruling a country. ^' Mending '' 
the Manchu being impossible, reinstating the 
Mings being out of the question, *^ ending '' 
the reign of the Manchu completely was the 
only alternative. Such being the case, the 
one possible form of government left was a 
republic, and, contrary to the opinion of both 
Chinese and Europeans to commence with. 
Sun has convinced his countrymen to his 
view. 

Not only so, but the few Europeans who 
have come into intimate contact with Sun, 
and listened to his carefully thought out 
judgments, to his well-balanced arguments, 
and to his at all times unprejudiced, logical, 
and unbiased statements, were driven to the 
same conclusion. The Europeans who have 
not had the opportunity of hearing the rea- 
soned conclusions of China's great leader 
still continued to hanker after an emperor 
of a sort, a muzzled monarch who would have 
neither part nor power in the government of 
the country. These conclusions are scarcely 
logical. If the Chinese are capable of con- 
ducting the country's affairs without the 



120 SUN YAT SEN 

Manchu even figuring in the play, why main- 
tain a sovereign and his court, with the in- 
evitable interference of the women and the 
eunuchs of the royal household? It is said 
these would be done away with. Well, the 
eunuchs might be abolished, the women can- 
not be, and the unfortunate interference of 
the women around the monarch is as potent 
to-day as it ever has been in Chinese history. 
Still is the argument heard that a monarch 
of a sort is a necessity, and that the Chinese 
are neither ready nor fitted for a republican 
form of government. Let us see. China has 
existed for centuries as a federation of 
states; a federal form of government has 
been in existence for at least five hundred 
years. Of the eighteen provinces of the Mid- 
dle Kingdom all have been ^^ self-contained '' ; 
provincial autonomy well-nigh complete has 
prevailed to a degree unknown in any re- 
public in existence, and paralleled perhaps 
only in the relations of the overseas domin- 
ions in the British Empire to the Mother 
Country. Even to the extent of defending 
the country from foreign foes do the prov- 
inces of China maintain their independence. 
Not once, but many times, have certain 
provinces in the south and west refused help 
to the Peking Government. 

The Chinese cannot, or could not in the 



THE STRUGGLE 121 

past, understand the meaning of their coun- 
try being in danger; an inroad of foreign 
troops carried with it no meaning of inter- 
national complications, for to the Chinese 
there were no other nations; the world out- 
side themselves consisted of subject States 
and ^* outer barbarians,'' and if occasionally 
these negligible communities gave trouble, it 
lay with the authorities in the province or 
provinces where the trouble existed to put 
it down. How could people far distant from 
the seat of disturbance be expected to take 
an active part or interest in matters which 
did not concern them! The Manchus at- 
tempted to maintain the masses of China in 
ignorance of foreigners and their ways, and 
succeeded in a marvellous manner in doing 
so. They dreaded the consequences of the 
people becoming enlightened, believing that 
only by keeping them in ignorance would 
their existence as rulers be tolerated. The 
adoption of belief in reform methods of gov- 
ernment cost the last Emperor his life, and 
the seal upon ancient methods of preserving 
ignorance was once more set. 

As an example of how ignorant the masses 
of China were kept by the Manchus, a con- 
crete example will suffice. During the late 
war with Japan the people in the south of 
China knew nothing of the trouble. Chi- 



122 SUN YAT SEN 

nese living in Kowloon — the British territory 
on the mainland of China which forms part 
and parcel of the colony of Hong Kong — 
during the height of the memorable struggle, 
not only never heard of the war but they 
had never even heard of the Japanese people. 
The Government officials in the southern 
provinces hesitated to send soldiers or ships 
to the north to the aid of their confreres, on 
the plea that they (the northerners) had got 
into the trouble and they must get out of it 
as best they could. There is nothing extraor- 
dinary in this declaration to those who know 
how independent these provinces are. The 
relationship of the Chinese provinces to each 
other and to the Throne is paralleled only 
within the British Empire. Neither Canada 
nor Australia is compelled to take part in a 
war in which Great Britain is involved. 
During the South African War Cape Colony 
remained ^^ neutral '^ whilst the Mother 
Country was preventing the colony being 
overrun by the Boers. Independence 
is the keynote of the overseas dominions of 
Britain to as marked an extent as is that of 
the provinces of China to the central 
authority. 

The provinces of the Middle Kingdom are 
merely a federation of states; ''Home 
Rule " has been their portion; their partici- 



THE STRUGGLE 123 

pation in any national danger was optional 
to a degree. The provinces have been ac- 
customed to govern themselves, and there 
need not be, and there will not be, now that a 
republican form of government has sup- 
planted a monarchical, any departure from 
the ^^ old custom " which has prevailed in 
China for centuries. 

The many letters which have within the 
last few months appeared in the Press from 
*^ authentic '' and ^' authoritative " sources 
are amusing reading in the light of to-day. 
These letters are still further evidence, if 
such were needed, of the "■ cult '' which pre- 
vailed in Peking. 

In the Strand Magazine^ under the head- 
ing of '' My Reminiscences, by Sun Yat 
Sen," it is mentioned that Yuan-Shih-Kai 
approached Sun some considerable time ago, 
and sent a messenger to interview him, and 
to convey Yuan's appreciation of what he 
was doing, and offering to help him in his 
campaign. My wife and myself knew of this 
proceeding from Dr. Sun personally, shortly 
after its occurrence, but kept the matter a 
close secret, believing that it would do in- 
finite harm were the circumstance published 
abroad. When Yuan was sent for by the 
Manchu Government to get them out of their 



124 SUN YAT SEN 

troubles, had the fact of his relations with 
Sun been told at the time, Yuan would have 
been discredited as hunting with both the 
hare and the hounds, and his influence would 
have been warped, or altogether annihilated. 
It was not intended to mention the matter in 
this volume at all, considering it a subject 
which, with several others told us by Sun, 
would do harm ^^ to the cause '' if disclosed, 
but since this *^ secret " is published for all 
to read in the magazine referred to, there is 
no necessity to keep silence in the matter any 
longer. 

For the immediate future of China the 
message sent by Yuan to Sun augurs well. 
Yuan was evidently not hide-bound in his 
devotion to the Manchus. He had at least 
a leaning towards reform, and he must have 
a regard for Sun and his principles, other- 
wise he would not have proffered help. Sun 
in his turn has a respect for Yuan, and has 
often spoken of his capability and his great 
grasp of affairs. With the two great men 
in China at the present moment therefore 
thinking alike, there is hope for a speedy 
coalition and for unanimity in purpose. It 
is well that Yuan's leanings towards the re- 
form movement were not known before ; now 
the publication of the fact can only do good. 
Yuan-Shih-Kai has behaved wisely and well, 



THE STRUGGLE 125 

but in a way which the authorities do not, 
or at any rate did not, know of. 

Had the Manchu Government and foreign 
representatives been aware of the fact 
earlier, their attitude would not have been so 
cordial, and Yuan's name might not have 
been lauded as it has been. Deserving of all 
praise Yuan certainly is; but not quite in 
the way his foreign advocates thought or de- 
sired. The power and influence Yuan pos- 
sesses has been dinned into my ears for 
many a day — ^^ Yuan is the great power in 
China, not Sun Yat Sen," and '^ that trou- 
blesome friend of yours is only an agitator 
that Yuan will soon settle," and similar re- 
marks by wiseacres who knew ^^ all about 
China. ' ' I have been compelled to hear this, 
knowing all the time that Yuan had ap- 
proached Sun. I had to be content to hear 
my friend traduced as a man of no conse- 
quence, and as a mere fly to be lightly 
brushed aside. Yuan was the man, but not 
in the way these ^' authorities " on ^^ things 
Chinese " believed. I knew from Sun that 
Yuan was ^^ sympathetic," and that Sun 
would stand aside and invite Yuan to become 
the President of China. A greater man than 
Yuan was my informant, a man without 
thought of self, seeking no honor but his 
country's, regardless of place or power; yet 



126 SUN YAT SEN 

powerful withal, and with a determination 
that nothing could move from the purpose 
he had at heart : a patriot in the highest and 
truest sense of the word; a meek man in all 
but his country's welfare. 

After Sun's release from the Legation in 
London, 1896, a number of his friends in 
Canton and Hong Kong sent me a large tab- 
let with Chinese characters inscribed upon it. 
Several Chinese scholars attempted to in- 
terpret the characters, but it was not until 
Sir James Stewart Lockhart saw the tablet 
that the full meaning was divulged, when it 
was found to be a line from the Sermon on 
the Mount, ^' Blessed are the merciful." 
Were I to return the compliment and present 
a tablet to Sun, I would inscribe upon it a 
verse preceding the one referred to as in- 
terpreting Sun's character: " Blessed are 
the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." 
If Sun's principles and men of his disposi- 
tion and character are to prevail in China, 
his country shall certainly inherit the earth, 
and the " yellow peril " will become a reality. 



VI 



A GRACEFUL TRIBUTE TO THE MINGS 
—THE REFORM MOVEMENT 

A CEREMONY of entrancing interest oc- 
curred on February 15, 1912, when 
Sun Yat Sen, at the time Provisional 
President of the United Republic of China, 
proceeded to the sepulchre of Chu Yuan- 
Chang, the founder of the Ming (Chinese) dy- 
nasty, and informed the spirit of the Em- 
peror that the alien Manchu Tartar had been 
dethroned. The tomb or mausoleum where 
the first of the Ming Emperors is buried lies 
just outside Nanking, at that time the capital 
of the Empire. 

An imposing procession visited the tomb, 
consisting of President Sun Yat Sen, the 
members of his cabinet, the civic and military 
officials, and a large escort of soldiers. 

The ceremony is interesting in many ways. 
The fact that the Manchus— the Eastern Tar- 
tars as they were formerly styled — were 
alien usurpers was prominently demon- 
strated. That Sun Yat Sen was the spokes- 

127 



128 SUN YAT SEN 

man on the occasion is a circumstance 
amounting to a romance, seeing that for fif- 
teen years he has passed through toil and 
strife, through dangers innumerable and un- 
told hardships, to attain the great object of 
his life, namely, the expulsion of the 
Manchus. 

But most interesting of all points in con- 
nection with the dignified and solemn cere- 
mony is the tone and exquisitely beautiful 
language in which the prayer and announce- 
ment was framed. The prayer is given in 
the London Times of April 3, 1912, and al- 
though the language loses something by the 
fact that it is a translation into English, it 
may be safely said the dignity and grandeur 
of this prayer has seldom been surpassed in 
either ancient or modern literature. In con- 
formity with the Confucian principle of serv- 
ing the dead as if they were present in the 
flesh, the prayer, conveying information of 
the important events in the history of a dy- 
nasty, is always communicated to the spirit 
tablet of the founder. The prayer was as 
follows : — 

^' Of old the Sung d3masty became effete, 
and the Liao Tartars and Yuen dynasty 
Mongols seized the occasion to throw this 
domain of China into confusion, to the fierce 
indignation of gods and men. It was then 




> 

<: 

o 

m 

O 
H 
m 

u 

< 

X 

H 

H 
< 

O 

I— t 

H- 1 

CO 

O 



TRIBUTE TO THE MINGS 129 

that Your Majesty, our founder, arose in 
your wrath from obscurity, and destroyed 
those monsters of iniquity, so that the ancient 
glory was won again. In twelve years you 
consolidated the Imperial sway, and the do- 
minions of the Great Yii were purged of pol- 
lution and cleansed from the noisome Tartar. 
Often in history has our noble Chinese race 
been enslaved by petty frontier barbarians 
from the north. Never have such glorious 
triumphs been won over them as Your 
Majesty achieved. But your descendants 
were degenerate and failed to carry on your 
glorious heritage; they entrusted the reins 
of government to bad men, and pursued a 
short-sighted policy. In this way they en- 
couraged the ambitions of the Eastern Tar- 
tar savages, and fostered the growth of their 
power. They were thus able to take advan- 
tage of the presence of rebels to invade and 
possess themselves of your sacred capital. 
From a bad eminence of glory basely won, 
they lorded it over this most holy soil, and 
our beloved China's rivers and hills were 
defiled by their corrupting touch, while the 
people fell victims to the headsman's axe or 
the avenging sword. Although worthy 
patriots and faithful subjects of your dy- 
nasty crossed the mountain ranges into Can- 
ton and the far south, in the hope of re- 



130 SUN YAT SEN 

deeming the glorious Ming tradition from 
utter ruin, and of prolonging a thread of the 
old dynasty's life, although men gladly per- 
ished one after the other in the forlorn at- 
tempt. Heaven's wrath remained unappeased, 
and mortal designs failed to achieve success. 
A brief and melancholy page was added to 
the history of your dynasty, and that was all. 
^' As time went on, the law became ever 
harsher, and the meshes of its inexorable 
net grew closer.* Alas for our Chinese peo- 
ple, who crouched in corners and listened 
with startled ears, deprived of power of 
utterance, and with tongues glued to their 
mouths, for their lives were past saving. 
Those others usurped titles to fictitious 
clemency and justice, while prostituting the 
sacred doctrines of the sages: whom they 
affected to honor. They stifled public opin- 
ion in the Empire in order to force acquies- 
cence in their tyranny. The Manchu des- 
potism became so thorough and so embrac- 
ing that they were enabled to prolong their 
dynasty's existence by cunning wiles. But 
even so, rebellions occurred. In Yung 
Cheng's reign the Hunanese Chang Hsi and 
Tseng Ching preached sedition against the 
dynasty in their native province, while in 
Chia Ching 's reign the Palace conspiracy of 
Lin Ching dismayed that monarch in his 



TRIBUTE TO THE MINGS 131 

capital. These events were followed by re- 
bellions in Sze-chuan and Shensi : under Tao- 
Kuang and his successor the Taipings started 
their campaign from a remote Kwangsi vil- 
lage. Although these worthy causes were 
destined to ultimate defeat, the gradual 
trend of the national will became manifest. 
At last our own era dawned, the sun of free- 
dom had risen, and a sense of the rights of 
the race animated men's minds. In addition 
the Manchu bandits could not even protect 
themselves. Powerful foes encroached upon 
the territory of China, and the dynasty 
parted with our sacred soil to enrich neigh- 
boring nations. The Chinese race of to-day 
may be degenerate, but it is descended from 
mighty men of old. How should it endure 
that the spirits of the great dead should be 
insulted by the everlasting visitation of this 
scourge? 

** Then did patriots arise like a whirl- 
wind or like a cloud which is suddenly mani- 
fested in the firmament. They began with 
the Canton insurrection; then Peking was 
alarmed by Wu Yueh's bomb (in 1905). A 
year later Hsu Hsilin fired his bullet into the 
vitals of the Manchu robber chief. En Ming, 
Governor of Anhui. Hsiung Cheng-chi 
raised the standard of liberty on the Yang- 
tse's banks; rising followed rising all over 



132 SUN YAT SEN 

the Empire, until the secret plot against the 
Eegent was discovered, and the abortive in- 
surrection in Canton startled the capital. 
One failure followed another, but other brave 
men took the place of the heroes who died, 
and the Empire was born again to life. The 
bandit Manchu Court was shaken with pallid 
terror, until the cicada shook off its shell in 
a glorious regeneration, and the present 
crowning triumph was achieved. The 
patriotic crusade started in Wuchang; the 
four corners of the Empire responded to the 
call. Coast regions nobly followed in their 
wake, and the Yang-tse was won back by our 
armies. The region south of the Yellow 
Eiver was lost to the Manchus, and the north 
manifested its sympathy with our cause. 
An earthquake shook the barbarian Court of 
Peking, and it was smitten with a paralysis. 
To-day it has at last restored the Govern- 
ment to the Chinese people, and the five races 
of China may dwell together in peace and 
mutual trust. Let us joyfully give thanks. 
How could we have attained this measure of 
victory had not Your Majesty's soul in 
heaven bestowed upon us your protecting in- 
fluence? 

** I have heard say that triumphs of Tartar 
savages over our China were destined never 
to last longer than a hundred years. But 



TRIBUTE TO THE MINGS 133 

the reign of tliese Manclius endured unto 
double, aye, unto treble, that period. Yet 
Providence knows the appointed hour, and 
the moment comes at last. We are initiating 
the example to Eastern Asia of a Republican 
form of government; success comes early or 
late to those who strive, but the good are 
surely rewarded in the end. Why then 
should we repine to-day that victory has 
tarried long I 

^^ I have heard that in the past many 
would-be deliverers of their country have 
ascended this lofty mound wherein is your 
sepulchre. It has served to them as a holy 
inspiration. As they looked down upon the 
surrounding rivers and upward to the hills, 
under an alien sway, they wept in the bitter- 
ness of their hearts, but to-day their sorrow 
is turned into joy. The spiritual influences 
of your grave at Nanking have come once 
more into their own. The dragon crouches 
in majesty as of old, and the tiger surveys 
his domain and his ancient capital. Every- 
where a beautiful repose doth reign. Your 
legions line the approaches to the sepulchre : 
a noble host stands expectant. Your people 
have come here to-day to inform Your 
Majesty of the final victory. May this lofty 
shrine wherein you rest gain fresh lustre 
from to-day's event and may your example 



134 SUN YAT SEN 

inspire your descendants in the times which 
are to come. Spirit! Accept this offer- 
ing! " 

Perhaps nothing will strike the historian, 
who undertakes to write an account of the 
Eeform Movement in China of 1911-12, more 
forcibly than the extraordinary care and the 
scientific acumen with which the foundations 
of the Republic were laid. Different from 
every other revolution we know of, that 
which we have just seen completed in China 
was not the result of an imbroglio, a mere 
whirlwind of passion, nor yet the outcome 
of a mob rising; even the fighting has been 
but a small part of the revolutionary move- 
ment — a side-issue which in every way pos- 
sible it was hoped and intended to avoid. 
For fifteen years Sun had been organizing 
the great movement, and striving to place it 
upon a firm basis. How did he do it? By 
preparing men for the government of the 
country under the new regime. Ten years 
ago the Eeform Party sent the most promis- 
ing Chinese students in the country to be 
educated abroad, so that they might be able 
to fill important positions in the cabinet and 
in the various departments of government. 
In Europe and America several hundreds of 
young Chinese were engaged in studies of 
all kinds, with a view to becoming legislators 



THE EEFOKM MOVEMENT 135 

and councillors. The men were being trained 
whilst yet the Manchus ruled and their hold 
on the throne seemed secure. 

A preparation for occupying positions 
which did not, and in the minds of many 
would never, exist, would strike most men 
as the product of a fantastic brain, and as 
the mere dreams of an idealist. First create 
the positions and then find the men is the 
usual method adopted in undertakings of the 
kind. When the revolution has been success- 
ful it will be surely time enough then to think 
of men to fill the vacant posts, is the short- 
sighted plan of the empiricist. Not so in 
Sun's idea. He took advantage of the men 
sent abroad by the late Emperor, whilst yet 
he held the reins of government, to be trained 
in modern methods of education and govern- 
ment, and in addition to these the Eeform 
Party supplemented the number by nominees 
of their own. During his visits to Europe 
and America Sun saw these men, conferred 
with them, and took them into his counsels. 
That he was held in their high esteem was evi- 
dent from the fact that whilst in Brussels (or 
some other European capital) many of the 
students in the different parts of Europe 
came to meet him on the several occasions of 
his visits. The proof that they actually did 
meet Sun is testified by the evidence of 



136 SUN YAT SEN 

photographs in my possession, in which, 
amongst a group of Chinese students, Sun 
is given the place of honor in the centre, and 
as a rule is seated whilst the others stand 
around him. These men represent modern 
China to-day; they were chosen for training 
abroad from amongst the best men to be 
found, and some of them are members of the 
oldest and best families. Yuan-Shih-Kai, 
when he made up his cabinet, said that it 
was composed of the best men China pos- 
sessed, and it is a fact that the highest posi- 
tions were given by Yuan to Sun's foreign- 
educated proteges. 

It will be remembered also that many of 
these men nominated by Yuan to serve in his 
cabinet refused to take up office under him, 
and joined Sun's cabinet in Nanking, so that, 
according even to Yuan's testimony, China's 
ablest men were in Sun's cabinet. The most 
recent published list of ministers is dated 
Peking, March 30, 1912, and reads as 
follows : — 

Premier and Minister of Communications, ad 
interim: Tangshaoyi. 

Minister for Foreign Affairs: Lu-Cheng-Hsian, 
hitherto Chinese Minister in St. Petersburg. 

Minister of Interior: Chao-Ping-Chun, who is 
reappointed. 

Minister of Finance: Hsuing-Hsi-Ling, a finan- 



THE REFORM MOVEMENT 137 

cier of moderate ability who has espoused the 
revolutionary cause. 

Minister of War; General Tuan-Chi-Jui, for- 
merly Viceroy of Hukuang. 

Minister of Marine: Liu-Kuan-Hsung (Progres- 
sive.) 

Minister of Education: Tsai-Yuan-Pei, leader of 
the Southern delegates, a Progressive educationist. 

Minister of Justice: Wang-Tsung-Hui. 

Minister of Agriculture: Sun-Khia-Jen. 

(The two last named were comparatively un- 
known before the outbreak of the revolution.) 

Minister of Commerce: Chen-Chi-Mei, a promi- 
nent Shanghai revolutionary. 

HIN-YUN GUIDE US. 

The Chinese Song in Time of Revolution. 

Freedom, one of the greatest blessings of Heaven. 

United to Peace thou wilt work on this earth 

Ten thousand wonderful new things. 

Grave as a spirit, great as a giant 

Rising to the very skies, 

With the clouds for a chariot and the wind for a 

steed. 
Come, come to reign over the earth. 
For the sake of the black hell of our slavery. 
Come, enlighten us with a ray of thy sun. 

"White Europe. Thou art indeed 
The spoiled daughter of Heaven. 



138 SUN YAT SEN 

Bread, wine — thou hast everything in abundance. 

For me, I love Liberty as a bride. 

Through the day in my thoughts, through the 

night in my dreams 
I survey the woes of my fatherland. 
But the inconstant nature of Liberty 
Prevents me from attaining her. 
Alas, my brethren are all slaves. 

The wind is so sweet, the dew is so bright, 

The flowers are so fragrant, 

Men are becoming all kings — 

And yet can we forget what the people are 

suffering ? 
At Peking we must bow our head 
Before the wolf of an Emperor. 
Alas, Freedom is dead. 
Asia the Great is nothing else 
But an immense desert. 

In this century we are working 

To open a new age. 

In this century, with one voice, all virile men 

Are calling for a new making of heaven and 

earth. 
May the soul of the people rise to the peak of 

Kwang-tung. 
Washington and Napoleon, you two sons of 

Liberty, 
May you become incarnated in the people. 
Hin-yun, our ancestor, guide us. 
Spirit of Freedom, come and protect us. 



VII 
THE FLAG OF THE NEW EEPUBLIC 

THE five stripes on the Eepublican flag 
of China bring home to ns the fact 
that the Chinese Empire is a congeries 
of peoples of Mongoloid type. The Chinese 
have for so long a period been the predomi- 
nant section of the Mongolian race that the 
terms Mongol and Chinese have come to be 
regarded as well-nigh synonymous. So much 
so has this been the case that the Mongolian 
invasion of Western Asia and Eastern 
Europe is often termed a Chinese invasion, 
whereas it was at least directed by the Mon- 
golians or Western Tartars, as the Chinese 
describe them. The ambition of all princes 
and khans of the Mongolian race was to gain 
possession of the throne of the Middle King- 
dom. This was accomplished first by the 
Mongolian or Western Tartars and subse- 
quently by the Manchurian or Eastern Tar- 
tars. The conquerors, however, became in- 
corporated with the Middle Kingdom, and 
their countrymen were spoken of subse- 

139 



140 SUN YAT SEN 

quently as Chinese. No other empire quite 
corresponds to that of China, the nearest 
approach to it being the British, but in China 
the several dominions are coterminous, 
whereas the British Empire is widely flung 
over seas. 

The ^ve component factors in the flag rep- 
resent (1) The Chinese of the eighteen home 
provinces, constituting the Middle Kingdom 
— or China proper. (2) The Manchurian 
people, styled the Eastern Tartars by the 
Chinese, who occupy the district of Man- 
churia, their ancient kingdom. (3) The 
Mongolians, the Western Tartars, who have 
from time to time proved so important an 
element in the destinies of China. (4) The 
Thibetans, a remote people upon whom the 
hold of China has been lax at times and again 
reasserted. (5) The Mahommedans who, al- 
though possessing no nationality, are a pow- 
erful religious sect within the widespread 
domains. To understand aright the part 
played by each of the groups represented 
within the flag would involve an intimate 
knowledge of Chinese history, which would 
be beyond the purpose of this sketch. How- 
ever, seeing that China will now occupy a 
more prominent place in modern history, a 
few notes are appended on the subject. 

1. The red or upper stripe in the Repub- 




THE NATIONAL FLAG OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC. 

the Flag five colours are arranged in parallel stripes ; these serve to 
indicate the several component elements of the Republic. 

From above downwards they are : — 

/^eif— Middle Kingdom, China Proper. 
V^Z/ow— The Manchurians or Eastern Tartars. 
B/ug— The Mongolian or Western Tartars 
IVAite— The Thibetans. 
B/ack^The Mohammedans. 



lii 



FLAG OF THE NEW REPUBLIC 141 

lican flag denotes the Chinese — the inhabi- 
tants of the Middle Kingdom, the predomi- 
nant Mongol people. 

It is impossible to ascertain the origin of 
the Chinese from recorded history. The race 
at present dwelling in the Middle Kingdom 
are believed to have originated near the sup- 
posed cradle of the human race in that in- 
definite area associated with the name of 
Mesopotamia. A nomad people, they trav- 
elled northeastward, carrying with them 
ideas of settled government, a knowledge of 
agriculture, of the production of silk, and the 
value and use of the mulberry-tree. This 
blackhaired race, as their neighbors styled 
them, found what we now call the Chinese 
Empire inhabited by *^ fiery dogs '^ in the 
north, ^' great bowmen " in the east, 
^^ mounted warriors '' in the west, and '^ un- 
governable vermin ' ' in the south. The types 
remain fairly well represented to-day: the 
fiery Tartar to the north, Manchurian bow- 
men to the eastward, Mongolian horsemen to 
the west, and to the south the clever inhabi- 
tants of the Kwang-tung (Canton), Kwangsi, 
and Fokien provinces. 

Amongst the yellow race, the Chinese, as 
distinct from Mongols, Tartars, etc., have 
preserved their intellectual, commercial, and 
political superiority, and are therefore en- 



142 SUN YAT SEN 

titled to have their nationality represented as 
the premier power in the federation. 

2. The second color in the flag — yellow — 
represents the Manchnrian or Eastern Tar- 
tars, as they were formerly styled. 

The Manchu dynasty, which has occupied 
the throne since the year 1643, deserves the 
second place in the Empire for more reasons 
than one. 

The inroads of the Eastern and Western 
Tartars (Mongols and Manchus) had long 
been a trouble and danger to the Chinese. 
The Great Wall of China was built two thou- 
sand years ago to keep them out. Extending 
over hill and dale for 1,500 miles inland, from 
the point where it touches the seacoast at 
Shan-hai-Kwan on the shores of the Gulf of 
Pechili, this stupendous structure, the great- 
est monument to labor ever accomplished, 
may be termed '' China's folly,'' just as the 
Yellow Eiver is styled "" China's sorrow," 
and serves to show the dread with which 
these Tartar hordes were regarded. It is jok- 
ingly said the expense entailed in the build- 
ing of this wall was such that the Chinese 
never got over it, but the Tartars did. When 
the wall failed in its purpose bribes, conces- 
sions, and payments in cash were tried in- 
stead, but the Eastern Tartars (Manchus) 
reduced the northern portion of China to 



FLAG OF THE NEW EEPUBLIC 143 

vassalage and were in a position to seize the 
throne. This they were prevented doing by 
the advance of the "Western Tartars (Mon- 
gols) under the famous Kublai Khan, who 
not only drove out the Eastern Tartars 
(Manchus) but seized the country and styled 
themselves Emperors of China. Kublai 
Khan, the first of the Yuen dynasty, favored 
Buddhism, which has never flourished in 
China as it did under the Mongol Tartar rule. 
Peking, originally a Tartar encampment, was 
designated the capital. Gradually, how- 
ever, luxurious living developed effeminacy 
amongst the Tartars, and so effete did they 
become that in a.d. 1366 the Chinese drove 
them from the throne and founded the Ming 
or Chinese dynasty. 

The Mings, as seemed to be the case with 
every succeeding dynasty in China, gradually 
became so effete that they at last drove their 
own Chinese countrymen into revolt. The 
leader of the rebellion was so successful that 
in 1643 he invested Peking, and rather than 
submit to capture the last of the Ming Em- 
perors committed suicide. All China seemed 
at the feet of the rebel leader, the only force 
in existence loyal to the Mings being an 
army near to the Manchurian border; and 
they were reduced to such straits that they 
invoked the aid of the Eastern Tartars 



144 SUN YAT SEN 

(Manchus), who readily accepted the invita- 
tion, and after defeating the Chinese rebels, 
the Manchu king entered Peking and seized 
the throne. Thus did the Manchus or East- 
ern Tartars enter China and assume the 
sovereignty, which they held until 1912, when 
a republic was declared with Dr. Sun Yat 
Sen as the first President. 

3. The third or blue color in the flag rep- 
resents the Western Tartars or Mongolians. 
The color is reminiscent of the ^' blue wolf,^' 
from which the Mongol sovereigns are 
mythically held to be ^' descended.'' The 
Mongolians had long been a trouble to the 
Middle Kingdom folk, and their audacity cul- 
minated when, under the greatest soldier of 
his day, Kublai Khan, they invaded the coun- 
try and established their rule at Peking. 
However, in the short period of eighty years 
Kublai Khan's descendants had to flee the 
country and seek refuge amongst the East- 
ern Tartars (Manchus), where they inter- 
married with the ruling family, so that the 
Manchu princes claim to have the blood of 
the Mongolian Emperors in their veins. 

4. Thibet is represented in the Eepubli- 
can flag as the fourth section of the State 
by the white stripe. The tenacity with which 
China has adhered to the possession of the 
barren region of Thibet may be ascribed 



FLAG OF THE NEW BEPUBLIC 145 

largely to the fact that the Grand Lama re- 
sides at Lhassa, the Rome and Mecca of 
China in a religions sense. 

Buddhism is tolerated in China, as are all 
other religions which do not interfere with 
the State religion of Confucianism. Five 
religions at least have their followers in 
China — Confucianism (the State religion), 
Buddhism, Taoism, Mahommedanism, and 
Christianity. It may be safely said all Chi- 
nese are primarily Confucians. Buddhism 
has no hold on the people; it is confined al- 
most entirely to an exercise of ritual prac- 
tised in temples and monasteries by priests. 
The language in which the form of worship 
is conducted is that of a bastard Hindustani, 
which is not only not understood by the 
Chinese, but even the priests who perform 
the ceremonies are for the most part wholly 
ignorant of the meaning of the words they 
use. The words are, in fact, mere sounds 
which convey nothing to either priest or wor- 
shippers. 

Taoism, a religion of reason, has degener- 
ated from the ideals origmally given it by 
Tao, the founder. This philosopher, who 
taught about the same time as Confucius, 
preached and practised a doctrine of inac- 
tivity, a neglect of the world and its concerns, 
loving neither fame, pleasure, nor business. 



146 SUN YAT SEN 

At present, however, the professed Taoists 
are for the most part jugglers and necroman- 
cers, who claim intimate relationship with de- 
mons. In some temples are found effigies of 
** the three pure ones,'' indicating a Triad 
fraternity — an imitation, no doubt, of the 
Buddhist Triad. Alchemy, a search for the 
elixir of longevity, magic, and a form of the 
healing art of the nature of the Christian 
Science of to-day, are traits of Taoism which 
now are followed only by the most ignorant 
of the people. 

5. The Mahommedans within the Chinese 
Empire are represented by the black stripe 
in the Eepublican flag. In their wide 
range of conquests the Mongols overcame 
many Mahommedan peoples, and their con- 
quests — more especially in Syria and in 
Baghdad, where Genghis Khan overthrew 
the famous Caliphate — brought them into 
close contact with Mahommedanism. Many 
diverse sects, tribes and communities are 
scattered throughout the Chinese Empire, 
and even within the Middle Kingdom itself 
Mahommedans are found who represent some 
of the most warlike of its peoples. 

Christians are not represented in the Ee- 
publican flag, although ever since the first 
century of the Christian era Christianity has 
found supporters now with the Mongol rul- 



FLAG OF THE NEW KEPUBLIC 147 

ers, now with the Chinese Emperors, and 
many of the people of both countries have 
followed its tenets. Nestorians carried the 
Gospel to the Far East and incorporated 
many of its doctrines into several forms of 
worship in Central Asia and China. Jesuits 
and Dominican priests found favor with the 
Emperors in Peking for several centuries, 
but when it was found out that the Pope and 
not the Emperor was the controlling agent in 
directing religious affairs, Eoman Catholi- 
cism fell into disfavor, being renounced by 
the governing class, whilst many of its ad- 
herents were killed. Of late years many sec- 
tions of the Christian Church have sent mis- 
sionaries to China, and so long as they do 
not interfere with the political affairs of the 
country as the Jesuits did, so long will they 
be allowed to preach the Gospel and to found 
churches. It is significant that the Taiping 
Eebellion, although headed by Christians, 
was put down by the help of Christian na- 
tions, and the first President of the Kepublic 
of China, Sun Yat Sen, is a Christian by 
birth, education, and profession. The tol- 
erance of all forms of religious belief in 
China is a tribute to the broadmindedness 
of the Chinese, and that form of Christianity 
will succeed which is based upon the will of 
the people and refrains from attempting to 



148 SUN YAT SEN 

interfere with the philosophic teaching of 
Confucius, the State religion (so-called) of 
China. 

The Christians, although fairly numerous, 
are scattered throughout the land, and their 
influence in the history of China is not 
deemed worthy of a stripe in the national 
flag, a fact perhaps all in favor of future 
success. 

A Chinaman may be a Confucian and yet 
a sound Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, or Ma- 
hommedan. Confucianism is a philosophy, 
not a religion, and its acceptance no more 
hinders a Chinese being a Christian than 
does a belief ia Darwinism prohibit an En- 
glishman being a devout Churchman. 



VIII 
THINGS CHINESE 

TO attempt a history of Cliina, even to 
give an outline of an empire fomided 
and its people civilized before Greece 
rose to eminence or Eome was heard of, 
would be the task of a lifetime. All that can 
be attempted is to state a few, a very few, 
of the more prominent characteristics of this 
extraordinary people, their everyday beliefs 
and ways. 

Five thousand years ago at least the civ- 
ilization of the Chinese was in an extraordi- 
nary state of advance ; in fact, they were per- 
haps the people of all mankind to be earliest 
civilized, and their records would seem to 
stamp them at that time as possibly but little 
different from the Chinese of to-day. When 
the Mongols entered Eastern Europe they 
found a barbarous people, and the legend 
'' Outer Barbarian '' remains with them as 
a term for Europeans to this day in conse- 
quence. 

There is the account of the people of what 

149 



150 SUN YAT SEN 

is now the city of Dresden, wlien the Chinese 
garrison was about to be withdrawn, petition- 
ing the authorities to allow the Chinese gov- 
ernor to remain, inasmuch as they had never 
been so well governed. This Chinese was, 
perhaps, the most highly civilized man and 
possibly the first trained official they had ever 
seen, and they were anxious for him to stay. 
Should he leave they dreaded a relapse to the 
old ^* barbaric '' regime of government again. 
Marco Polo, although in the history of China 
the visits of this traveller are but as yester- 
day, found difficulty not when he had entered 
China, but in the countries he had to traverse 
to reach the Chinese boundary. Once in Chi- 
nese territory he found magnificent roads, 
with inns and posting establishments at every 
thirty miles' interval on his way from the 
Caspian to the capital of China. Order 
reigned wherever the Chinese ruled and set- 
tled government prevailed. Their literature, 
their agriculture, their medical knowledge, 
and several industries such as that of silk, 
were in an advanced state before Moses was 
cradled or Solomon built his temple. 

We may well be asked why they have not 
continued to advance. The reply may be 
summed up as isolation due perhaps for the 
most part to natural forces. The relapse of 
Central Asia into a desert formed a barrier 




THE "FU-TSI-MIAO," 
or Confucian Temple at Nanking 







BUDDHIST TEMPLE ON ISLAND OF PU-TI. 
The most sacred place in Chinese Buddhism 



THINGS CHINESE 151 

between China and Western Asia which it 
was quite impossible to contend with. The 
desert has gradually encroached, and is still 
encroaching, upon the western frontiers of 
China. The desiccation of Central Asia has 
obliterated many fertile lands, and it is only 
a process of time until the capital shares a 
similar fate. The sand is gradually encroach- 
ing on Peking, and this should prove an addi- 
tional reason for removing the capital from 
Peking to Nanking. Southward advance into 
India was thwarted by the Himalayas, for 
mountains then, as now, present the greatest 
difficulties to be overcome by armies; they 
constitute the chief barriers also to the inter- 
community of peoples, and debar effective 
military occupations of remote territories. 
When China became separated from the 
West, her people, hemmed in by mountains 
and cut off by impassable deserts, lost touch 
with the rest of mankind, with the result 
that they relapsed into a state of inborn con- 
ceit, which led them to imagine that they were 
the people, and that the rest of the world 
remained as they had originally found them, 
in a state of " utter barbarism.'^ It was only 
when ships of sufficient size were built by 
Europeans to travel long distances that 
China was again brought into contact with 
the outer world. For about ^yq hundred 



152 SUN YAT SEN 

years at least they had been left to them- 
selves, and it was not until the Portuguese, 
some three hundred and fifty years ago, fol- 
lowed by the Dutch and the English, reached 
China by sea, that the Chinese had any 
knowledge of the change which had occurred 
amongst the inhabitants of Europe. For 
some three centuries they held these visitors 
in contempt and reluctantly tolerated them 
at only a few of their ports. They took no 
heed of these men who came thither in 
their ships to barter goods for tea and 
silk. 

Gradually, however, the trade increased; 
the visits of these unwelcome '' foreign dev- 
ils " were tolerated at times, and again 
thwarted by edicts promulgated by the Man- 
chu rulers. One says the Manchu rulers ad- 
visedly ; for before the Manchu regime, whilst 
China was governed by the Ming (or Chi- 
nese) Emperors, foreigners were allowed to 
enter and travel through the country unmo- 
lested. As the British traders became more 
and more persistent in their attempts to open 
up trade in tea and silk, troubles arose which 
led to several wars during the last century, 
with the result that treaties and concessions 
were insisted upon and some ports were 
opened at which trade with the foreigner was 
allowed. 



THINGS CHINESE 153 

Thus gradually has China been made cog- 
nizant of the civilization of the West, with 
the consequences we know of to-day, when 
the people have been aroused from their leth- 
argy under the stimulating influence of Sun 
and his colleagues. Had China had no tea 
or silk to sell, she would have been left alone 
much longer; there would have been no in- 
ducement for the European to make the long 
voyages, which in the days of sailing-ships 
extended to more than a year, from Britain 
to China and back. In this manner has China 
passed through the phases of her develop- 
ment — a change brought about by a natural 
sequence of events partly geographical, 
partly owing to the demand for the products 
which she was alone able to supply to the 
rest of the world. 

The armies of the Chinese Empire in ear- 
lier times penetrated far beyond the immedi- 
ate confines of their home territories and 
compelled submission and demanded tribute 
from many tribes and potentates. Their ad- 
vance across Western Asia and their pres- 
ence in Eastern Europe came nigh to swamp 
the Eurasian continents and establish a Mon- 
goloid in place of an Indo-European people 
in Europe and South-West Asia. They left 
their mark in Eussia, and the phrase 
** Scratch a Eussian and you will find a Tar- 



154 SUN YAT SEN 

tar " holds good to-day. Southward the 
Mongolians crossed the Himalayas and left 
the Nepalese — a Mongolian people — as a leg- 
acy. They passed into Burmah and peopled 
it. Siam, Annam, Cochin China, and Cam- 
bodia had to bow before their might, and to 
the present time most of these countries pay 
tribute to China. The tribute may be noth- 
ing more than a bowl of rice, a present of 
flowers, a mere ^* pepper-corn " tribute, but 
still it is *^ tribute," and neglect to forward 
it is regarded as a slight to the suzerain and 
a punishable offence. Asia and half Europe, 
in the days of Genghis Khan and Kublai 
Khan, were practically at their feet, and they 
believed there were no more ^^ worlds " to 
conquer. Satiated with conquest, having ob- 
tained the mastery of all around them, pos- 
sessing a civilization as superior in its form 
to their neighbors' as ours is to-day to that 
of the court of Dahomey, it is scarcely to be 
wondered at that they grew conceited and 
wrapped themselves up in self-satisfaction. 
Arms could achieve no more, and they came 
to regard prowess on the field of battle an 
unworthy calling for intellectual men to 
follow. 

With the world as they knew it paying 
tribute, arms and armies seemed uncalled 
for; their advanced civilization reached the 



THINGS CHINESE 155 

stage whicli some Western Europeans wish 
to see attained at the present day, namely, 
the abolition of armies in favor of interna- 
tional courts of justice, where all matters 
in dispute between nations are to be adjudi- 
cated. The Chinese attained this pinnacle of 
super-civilization ^^ve hundred years ago. 
The status of the soldier was depreciated and 
regarded as a caste and calling of a low, 
perhaps the lowest, degree. Only now is 
Western Europe dreaming of such a state of 
civilization; the Chinese not only dreamt of 
it but acted upon it, and it has proved their 
undoing. Super-civilization of the kind is 
theoretically beautiful in its conception, and 
would, no doubt, be possible of attainment 
if there existed but one ruler or one pre- 
dominant race in the world. The Chinese, 
so far as they knew the world, were in that 
position and could afford to convert their 
swords into pruning-hooks. Unfortunately 
for the fulfilment of their dream of peace, 
there appeared barbarians from the outer 
world, who desired not only commercial re- 
lationship, but who had the presumption to 
present petitions to the Throne, and refused 
to allow their people to be judged or pun- 
ished according to the law of China. This 
led to trouble, to war, to loss of territory, to 
humiliation, and to '' loss of face '' in the 



156 SUN YAT SEN 

eyes of the world and in their estimation of 
themselves. 

China had no armed force wherewith to 
withstand the inroads of these *^ outer bar- 
barians "; militarism as a profession was 
held in contempt, and not all the edicts of the 
'' Son of Heaven " could drive the bar- 
barians back to their dens. It might be 
thought, and with a high degree of reason, 
that a nation to whom fighting was abhorrent 
and regarded as degrading would, in the 
course of some five hundred years, find the 
fighting instincts of the people blunted, and 
that the men would have become effete and 
would shrink from war and battle. 

In this condition of unalloyed peace, the 
result of military prowess, China might 
have continued indefinitely had she been left 
alone. But it was not to be. The almost 
complete isolation that had so long prevailed 
became impossible as new modes of travel 
both by sea and land developed. Foreigners 
came to Chinese shores first in their large 
ocean-going sailing-ships, attracted thither 
by the desire for the tea, silk, camphor, &;c., 
which the Chinese produced and because they 
found a ready market for rice, sugar, cotton 
goods, and the thousand-and-one articles 
which go to make up the merchandise of 



THINGS CHINESE 157 

'* necessaries.'' Not to be put off, foreigners 
approached from all sides. 

In the north and west the Eussians and 
Central Asian peoples closed in upon the 
frontiers of the Middle Kingdom. The sea- 
ports were visited by Europeans, and con- 
cessions demanded at the point of the bay- 
onet, which was occasionally thrust home. 
The establishment of foreign embassies and 
consulates was insisted upon, treaties were 
enforced at the cannon's mouth, and of late 
years territory has been seized and held by 
several Powers. The Chinese have, in fact, 
been driven by force into becoming a mere 
nation, whilst a century ago they were a 
dominant people. The elephant amongst na- 
tions, China has been pestered, worried, and 
nibbled at by the rest of the world until she 
has come to realize that her sway is not uni- 
versal, that her boundaries are not illimita- 
ble, and that she cannot nowadays compel 
world-wide tribute. At first she regarded 
the visits of these foreigners as a passing 
phenomenon in her existence that would soon 
cease; the people who came to her shores 
claiming to be civilized she had formerly 
known only as barbarians; compared with 
China these modern nations were regarded 
as creations of yesterday and of mushroom 
growth — mere froth, which would bubble for 



158 SUN YAT SEN 

a while and then fade away into the ocean 
from whence it came. 

It is the interference of the foreign Powers 
that has made China a nation, and for the 
first time for many centuries she has had to 
buckle to and see to it that her frontiers 
are respected, that her power is established, 
and that her house is put in order. That 
she can do it is beyond doubt, and that she 
will do it the Chinese themselves are deter- 
mined upon. Let the nations who have 
brought this about look to themselves. These 
are no barbarous people emerging into the 
refulgence of an unaccustomed civilization, 
but a people of high and ancient civilization 
being narrowed down to become a nation. 
Eesourceful, capable, and self-reliant, the 
Chinese possess all the qualities and attri- 
butes of greatness. It is said there are three 
elements necessary to make a people great — 
prowess in the field, diplomatic ability, and 
commercial instincts. China has had, and 
still has, all three and some of them in a 
superlative degree. The first of these has 
been in abeyance for some centuries but the 
fighting instinct is there, and it wants but 
to be organized to place it on a level of 
excellence with the others. 

The efficiency and superiority of the armies 
of China reached a maximum of attainment 



THINGS CHINESE 159 

in the days of Genghis Khan and Kublai 
Khan. These great soldiers reduced well- 
nigh all Asia tx> submission and conquered 
in Europe wherever they appeared. So 
firmly was the military superiority of China 
established, that its very thoroughness 
proved the undoing of the country, for, sa- 
tiated with success, soldiering came to be 
neglected, and organized armies passed out 
of existence. No foemen worthy of their 
steel were left, the sword was condemned to 
rust, and the nation gave itself over to lit- 
erature (unfortunately of a useless kind) 
and to commerce. The Emperors ruled the 
nation and kept the people in submission and 
in darkness by a few regiments, and the fight- 
ing instinct of the people was curbed and 
scotched. That it was not destroyed, how- 
ever, recent events have shown, and its con- 
tinued existence has proved the salvation of 
the country. Without it there would have 
been no reform achieved; the Manchus 
would have continued their harassing rule 
and kept the people of China in ignorance 
and backwardness. 

As examples of fortitude in the field we 
have several modern instances. Take, for 
example, Gordon's testimony during the 
Taiping Eebellion of the courage displayed 
by the men in the '' Ever Victorious '' Army. 



160 SUN YAT SEN 

Not only did Gordon's men earn encomiums 
from their leader, but their Taiping adver- 
saries fought with a determination which 
won the admiration of the foreign officers 
who served in Gordon's army. 

Again, during the recent Boxer Eising the 
officers of the allied European armies ac- 
corded a high meed of praise to the capabil- 
ity and bravery of the Chinese troops op- 
posed to them, and on one memorable occa- 
sion at least the allies had to retire before 
their adversaries. In the recent fighting also 
around Hankow a British surgeon relates 
how keen the Chinese soldiers were. Seri- 
ously wounded men, after their wounds were 
dressed, could with difficulty be restrained 
from returning to the fighting line; even 
when so severely injured as to require to 
be taken to hospital, it was no uncommon 
thing to find on visiting the hospital in the 
morning that wounded soldiers had escaped 
during the night and again gone to the 
front. That they did so was confirmed 
by the fact that several of the previously 
wounded men were brought again to hospital 
suffering from further wounds which totally 
incapacitated them. 

This is evidence of valor worthy of the 
bravest ; and affords abundant testimony that 



THINGS CHINESE 161 

the fighting instincts and courage of the 
Chinese have not been lost. 

Along with the courage and readiness to 
fight, the Chinese have occasionally resorted 
to tactics now Fabian, now Machiavellian in 
their type. Sometimes devices showing su- 
preme genius characterized their efforts in 
dealing with an enemy; examples of which 
there are many. As an instance of the kind, 
and at the same time showing how well the 
Chinese could be kept in hand when neces- 
sity demanded, the story of a rebel leader 
will serve to illustrate. The supremacy of 
the Manchu rulers was not universally 
received throughout China when, in a.d. 1643, 
they ascended the throne. 

Many Chinese refused to shave their heads 
in token of submission and to adopt the Tar- 
tar fashion of a long plaited tress or cue. 
A portion of the south remained unsubdued, 
and under a maritime leader, Koshinga, re- 
mained true to the Chinese, or Ming dy- 
nasty, cause. Co-operating with adherents 
on shore, Koshinga, with his headquarters on 
the island of Formosa, not only enlisted the 
Chinese fleet, but he also got together the 
boat population of Formosa and of the China 
coast, and led a predatory host to plunder 
and sack one city after another along the 
Chinese littoral. He swept over Canton, 



162 SUN YAT SEN 

Amoy, Swatow, Foocliow, Shanghai, &c., and 
no place adjacent to the sea or the estuaries 
of rivers was safe from his onslaught. The 
authorities on the mainland were helpless; 
they had no boats wherewith to attack, for 
every fisherman, sailor and pirate with their 
crafts had joined the rebels; there were not 
sufficient troops in the country to garrison 
the towns along 2,500 miles of sea-coast, and 
no warning was ascertainable as to where 
the next attack was to be made. For years 
did this continue, and the authorities were 
driven to despair. At last a plan of cam- 
paign was devised which for ingenuity of 
conception and enormity of detail has no 
parallel. It was no other than that the en- 
tire population of the sea-coasts of China 
should retire inland, leaving the towns and 
country bare. Not only did the people move 
away from the shore, but animals of every 
kind were removed; houses were emptied of 
their effects; provender that could not be 
carried inwards was destroyed, and the coun- 
try for three leagues from the sea was 
rendered a desert. When next the rebel 
fleet attacked there was nothing to be 
obtained. 

One city after another told the same tale, 
until at last want of supplies began to have 
its effect ; the rough adherents began to quar- 



THINGS CHINESE 163 

rel amongst themselves ; the scramble for food 
became severe, and the delinquents reverted 
to the Emperor. Finally the instigator of 
the rebellion was compelled to deliver For- 
mosa to the Government, and peace was re- 
stored. A nation capable of devising and 
carrying out so gigantic a co-ordination of 
the masses — for some 30,000,000 of people 
were affected by the removal — is a dangerous 
one to encounter. 

Again, the extraordinary persistency and 
patience whereby an invading army from 
Turkestan was driven back for some 700 
miles across the desert district of Chinese 
Tartary by the ^^ agricultural army '' in the 
middle of last century showed a power of 
resource and a genius of a kind peculiarly 
Chinese. Unable to meet the enemy in an 
open engagement, the Chinese troops, under 
the crafty Tso-Tsun-Tau, encamped in the 
neighborhood of the opposing force and held 
a piece of ground which they cultivated, and 
on it grew their food. Now they would 
harass their opponents and cut off their sup- 
plies, and so compel them to retire a certain 
distance. The Chinese again followed them 
up, cultivated the ground and had plenty of 
food, whilst their enemy was almost starved, 
or lived upon the victuals the Chinese chose 
to sell them. Now the Chinese soldiers 



164 SUN YAT SEN 

would actually appear in the enemy's camp 
selling food of all kinds wMcli they had culti- 
vated, and at the same time obtain knowl- 
edge of the numbers and disposition of the 
enemy's forces. Then they would withhold 
supplies, again loot convoys, and reduce the 
enemy to the verge of starvation, and thus 
compel another retirement. Again the Chi- 
nese would follow them at a safe distance. 
These tactics were repeated time after time 
until the invaded territory was recovered 
and incorporated once more in the Empire. 
An enemy possessing so high a degree of 
patience and fertility of resource is a trouble- 
some one to meet in conflict. 

War, however, we have seen, became a 
despicable thing to the super-civilized Chi- 
nese, and the way in which they latterly re- 
garded their god of war was in consonance 
with this attitude of mind. Every feature of 
life in China and every occupation has its 
presiding deity. Each god has to be propi- 
tiated, but whilst lip service or physical 
homage is given him the respect for his om- 
nipotence is really but scant. The god of 
war is supposed to watch over not only the 
chances of war, but the munitions of war- 
fare; the guns, the shot and shell, and even 
the efficacy of charges of gunpowder are un- 
der his protection and in his hands. 



THINGS CHINESE 165 

Yet do the people, under the war god's 
** very nose," as it were, steal the gunpow- 
der and fill the vacancy with sand or saw- 
dust ; cannon-shot is removed bodily, utilized 
for making implements, and its place taken 
by lumps of clay, shaped and painted to look 
like metal shot; the mountings are stolen 
from the gun carriages, so that the guns are 
thereby rendered useless. Even the very 
guns themselves are at times removed, as the 
following account shows : When travelling to 
Peking in 1894, on horseback from Tientsin, 
as we approached Peking, the forts in the 
walls loomed large and threatening. Ad- 
dressing the Chinese guide, I remarked that 
there was no fear of the Russians getting 
into Peking with all these guns in the forts. 
'' Oh, no,'' laconically remarked the guide. 
After a time he said: ^^ They no belong 
proper guns " ('' These are not proper 
guns "). '^ Oh! what is the matter with 
them? They look all right." '^ No," he re- 
marked, *' You look see, have makee paint 
'em guns." I again looked, and could see the 
mouths of many guns in the embrasures. 
My further interrogations led to the state- 
ment, '' Have steal 'em gun, what thing you 
see belong piecee wood. ' ' Sure enough it was 
so. The guns had been removed, pieces of 
wood filled the embrasures, and a gun-mouth 



166 SUN YAT SEN 

was carefully and exactly painted on ttie 
wood. 

I remarked that it was very foolish to do 
this, ^^ What for makee fool pidgeon all the 
same? '' C' Why do you condescend to such 
foolish business'? "). ^' Oh," said the guide, 
** that war god he belong number one fooloo; 
he thinkee that all the same proper guns." 
What he told me was that the war god is a 
fool, and he (the god) believed that what he 
saw was really guns — and consequently Pe- 
king was quite safe. I, for the first time, un- 
derstood something of the frame of mind in 
which the Chinese regarded their idols. The 
gods were necessary institutions, but they 
could be easily cheated, and anything would 
do to gain their protection, so long as even 
a pretence of reverence was paid them. A 
similar frame of mind obtains towards an- 
other god — ^the sea god. All Chinese craft 
have an eye painted on either side of the 
prow of their boats, and many Chinese will 
not travel by a foreign steamer unless they 
see eyes painted on either side of the prow, 
or over the paddle-boxes. They have framed 
their belief after the manner of a syllogism 
in regard to the matter as follows: — 

" Suppose no got eye, how can see; 
No can see, how can savey; 
No can savey, how can walkee? " 



THINGS CHINESE 167 

The opening statement is not confutable: 

*^ It is impossible to see without an eye " 

real, artificial, or painted, is not in the ques- 
tion. '' If there is no eye, it is not possible 
for the boat to know (savey) what direction 
to take (walkee).'' This legend is a com- 
monly quoted bit of ^^ pidgeon English," and 
repeated to every visitor to China by old 
Anglo-Chinese residents. Wishiag to under- 
stand the import of this arrant nonsense, I 
interrogated a Chinese in the matter and 
said, ^* I cannot understand how a sensible, 
practical people like the Chinese uphold such 
beliefs as these. Why do they continue to 
paint an eye on their ships? " He replied, 
*^ That sea god he belong number one fooloo, 
he thinkee that all proper eye.'^ They hu- 
mored the god, but they did not honor him. 
Our forefathers propitiated witches in the 
same way; many at times invoked their aid; 
others, though disbelievers to an extent, 
would say nothing against the witches in case 
some calamity might befall them. 

Christianity did not do away with these 
beliefs in our country. The traditions of our 
ancient heathen gods came down to us as our 
witches, kelpies, bogie-men, &c., and to-day 
we frighten our children with them. The 
Chinese still set up their gods and propitiate 
them, but all real belief ia their powers has 



168 SUN YAT SEN 

gone, and sacrifice to the gods has become 
a mere mummery. We are not so far away 
from the Chinese way of thinking after all. 

The transition from the old to the new 
China of to-day has been much in evidence 
during the past few years, and in nothing 
more markedly than in matters military. 
The bow and arrow, the official weapon of 
China, has been supplanted by firearms; but 
the transition died hard, and in several in- 
stances presented comical features. Even so 
late as 1894 the spectacle could be seen of 
sentries armed with bows and arrows mount- 
ing guard at the gates of the huge modern 
arsenal at Tientsin and at the Taku Forts at 
the mouth of the Peiho Eiver. Within were 
Armstrong and Krupp cannon, modern quick- 
firing guns, repeating rifles, and all the mu- 
nitions of modern war; without, a sentry 
carrying a bow and arrow. 

But although ^^ armed '' with bows and 
arrows, even these were viewed with sus- 
picion by their rulers. No one who has seen 
the Manchu soldiery practising with bow and 
arrow at the targets can ever forget the ludi- 
crous spectacle. No archer hit the target, 
no archer dared to hit the target; it was as 
much as his life was worth. The Manchu 
authorities watched the proceedings care- 
fully, never served out more than an arrow 



THINGS CHINESE 169 

or two at a time, and care was taken that 
the point would penetrate nothing harder 
than a target of straw, rope, or canvas. They 
sagaciously reasoned thus : ^* If a man can hit 
the target, he can hit us.'' In other words, so 
little did the Manchus trust their own kins- 
men that they were afraid of men who could 
shoot straight, and at all times took care that 
the weapon was incapable of causing a 
wound. A good shot might turn the 
weapon against his officer, and thereby wipe 
off old scores against the ** oppressor.'' 
The men, therefore, dared not exhibit any 
skill, so the arrows went wide of the mark, 
or fell a long way short of the target. 

With the modem foreign-drilled soldiers 
armed with rifles, blank ammunition was 
served out to them as a rule when they went 
to practise firing; this was partly no doubt 
for economy's sake, but partly to avoid the 
danger to the rulers of placing effective 
weapons in the hands of the soldiers. Even 
in the recent fighting around Hankow blank 
cartridges were supplied to the troops in 
many instances, and the cannon-shot used 
not infrequently consisted of wooden or clay 
balls shaped and painted to look like real 
cannon-shot. The practised economy in am- 
munition was not always on the part of the 
Government ; the officers in charge of the am- 



170 SUN YAT SEN 

munition had to make their livelihood some- 
how. As pay was small at best of times and 
always uncertain in its bestowal, these officers 
saw no way of earning a livelihood except by 
deceit and fraud; hence the charges were 
of sawdust or the bullets were abstract- 
ed and their place taken by stones, clay, 
wood, &c. 

This disregard of efficiency was due partly 
to the desire for economy and to the fear of 
arming the people, but largely to the tradi- 
tional disregard and contempt in which the 
Chinese for hundreds of years have held 
prowess in the field of battle. 

Although China has her mythology in com- 
mon with the early history of all nations, 
there is no doubt as to her antiquity as a 
great and civilized power. Before the Chow 
dynasty, which lasted for eight centuries and 
terminated in 220 b.c, fable and fact are so 
entwined that many are inclined to regard 
the accounts of the Three Emperors as myth- 
ical. One of these '^ myths,'' however — 
Fohy — some 2,600 years before Christ, intro- 
duced organized government, the arts of 
music and numbers, astronomical observa- 
tions, and all that we understand by civiliza- 
tion in the home and in the national equip- 
ment. The Five Sovereigns succeeded the 
Three Emperors, and after the sovereigns 



THINGS CHINESE 171 

came the period of the Shang tyrants, who 
in turn were displaced by the Chow dynasty , 
and with the Chow Emperors the definite his- 
tory of China commences. The Chow rule 
lasted for eight centuries, extending to the 
year 220 b.c, and during that period Con- 
fucius lived and wrote. After his death in 
477 B.C. civil war prevailed, and it was not 
until A.D. 220, when the famous Han rulers 
came into power, that the contending na- 
tions were again amalgamated as an empire. 
The dynasty of Tsin commenced in 265 a.d., 
and it is presumed that the name China, or 
Tsina, was given to the Chinese by the people 
of India from these rulers. The Chinese 
never had a name for their empire : they were 
' * THE people, ' ' the only people of the world, 
and all other nations they regarded as mere 
dependents, they themselves being the pre- 
dominant inhabitants of the globe. In a.d. 
416 the Tsin rule terminated, and the country 
was divided into two, the southern portion 
with its capital at Nanking, and the northern 
capital in Honan. 

In A.D. 585 the north and south were 
blended for the first time with the capital 
in Honan. The Tang dynasty in a.d. 618 suc- 
ceeded to the throne, but lost it in a.d. 897. 
Civil war ensued, and it was not until a.d. 
960 that the Soong (Sung) dynasty was 



172 SUN YAT SEN 

raised to the throne. The Mongols, or West- 
ern Tartars, under Knblai Khan, invaded 
China and founded the Yuen dynasty, but 
their excesses and vices led to complete de- 
generacy, and the Ming (Chinese) Emperors 
succeeded to power in a.d. 1368, and ruled un- 
til the Manchus, the Eastern Tartars, 
usurped the throne in a.d. 1643, and only ter- 
minated their occupancy of it on February 
15, 1912, owing to the efforts of Sun Yat 
Sen and his colleagues. 

The Mongol or yellow race forms one of 
the three great types of the human family, 
and along with the Indo-European constitutes 
the population of Europe and Asia, with the 
exception of some of the negroid types in the 
Archipelago. 

The Mongoloid type is stamped by several 
X iMf^cv physical characteristics. The J^Mf^ of the 
^ J head is oval, not round; the skin is endowed 
with a less ample coating of hair than in the 
case of the Indo-European ; the bridge of the 
nose is less pronounced, with the result that 
the skin of the upper eyelid forms a fold at its 
inner side, giving what is known as the Mon- 
gol type of face. It is usually said that the 
eye is oblique, but this is not the case. The 
fold of skin at the inner aspect of the upper 
lid gives rise to the apparent obliquity, and 
if the skin over the bridge of the nose is 



THINGS CHINESE 173 

pinclied up the fold, and so-called obliquity 
of the eye, disappears. 

All European babies are born with a low 
or flat bridge to the nose and a fold at the 
inner side of the eyelid; the bridge of the 
nose gradually develops, until by the time 
puberty is reached the ^' bridge " has risen 
and the fold disappears. In the case of 
Mongols, however, the ^^ bridge " does not, 
as a rule, develop; the eyelid fold remains, 
and the apparent obliquity of the eyes con- 
tinues through life in consequence. Another 
facial difference between the Mongol and 
Indo-European is the presence and absence 
of '^ bumps '^ on the forehead. The Euro- 
pean male at the age of adolescence develops 
* ^ bumps ' ' on the lower part of the forehead. 
These are not due to brain development, but 
to a separation of the layers of the bone of 
the forehead just above the eyes, leaving 
cavities occupied by air, which communicate 
with the nose. The elevations that result 
form the bumps so dearly beloved by the 
** head-reader," who endows them with 
varied forms of intellectual capacity. In the 
Chinese these air-cells are but slightly devel- 
oped, and their features appear to occidental 
ideas as '^baby-like.'' A ^'child-like and 
bland " aspect is natural to the features of 
the Mongols, not from the causes Bret Harte 



174 SUN YAT SEN 

would have us believe, but from normal eth- 
nological developmental causes. 

The marked development of the cavities in 
several parts of the small European skull at 
adolescence, when the voice *' breaks,'' ac- 
counts for the more rugged outline of the 
skull in Europeans as compared with Chinese ; 
and also for the depth of the male (bass) 
voice in Europeans, compared with the most 
tenor-like notes of the Chinese, especially 
when singing, in which a high falsetto is the 
rule. Of other physical Mongoloid character- 
istics one is a sturdy frame, and although 
the bones are relatively small compared with 
Indo-Europeans, yet is the muscular system 
capable of great development. The gap also 
between the canine (eye-tooth) and its neigh- 
bor in front is a characteristic Mongoloid 
feature. 

The question of the position of women in 
China has been put to me by many women 
who are interesting themselves in the po- 
litical position of women in England. They 
wanted to know Sun's attitude towards wom- 
en's suffrage, and, although the subject is 
rather a forbidding one to touch in England 
at present, there can be no harm in describ- 
ing the prospects of women in political mat- 
ters in China. Sun's attitude is well de- 
scribed by Mr. Arthur Diosy in the London 




SUN YAT SEN'S TWO DAUGHTERS 
From a recent photograph 



THINGS CHINESE 175 

Globe in February, 1912. Mr. Diosy has 
written several articles and letters and 
spoken freely upon the part played by Dr. 
Sun Yat Sen in the reform movement in 
China. Mr. Diosy is deeply interested in 
Chinese reform — a frame of mind inherited, 
no doubt, for his father was Kossuth's secre- 
tary. No one is in a better position to de- 
clare his opinion than Mr. Diosy, for he has, 
so far as Great Britain is concerned, alone 
enjoyed with my wife and myself the privi- 
lege of an intimate acquaintance with the 
great reformer, and of hearing Sun expound 
his views on all matters appertaining to the 
future of China politically, judicially and 
socially. 

Women in China have hitherto occupied 
no place in the political horizon, apart, be 
it said, from the dowager empresses in the 
royal household — an example that cannot 
be said to be propitious. Chinese women 
were not supposed to learn to read and write. 
A great difference indeed from the case of 
the men, for every boy in China is taught 
to read, write and count. In China for thou- 
sands of years this has been the case; yet in 
Europe compulsory education is but a thing 
of yesterday. In some nations of Europe 
universal national education is still unknown, 
and in some eases the proportion of persons 



176 SUN YAT SEN 

who can even now read is but about 30 per- 
cent, of the population. Although not, per- 
haps, given ** school-board teaching '' as we 
know it, yet is the Chinese woman educated 
in branches of household work which amount 
to little short of the marvellous in their ex- 
cellence. In sewing work, in embroideries, in 
harmonizing of colors in dresses, table- 
covers, bed-quilts, petticoats, jackets, &c., the 
Chinese men and women are skilled beyond 
all other people, and their productions are 
frequently works of art which have long as- 
tonished the world by their perfection. 

The position of the woman within the do- 
main of the household is a superlative one; 
she rules absolutely, and, just as the dowager 
empresses have shown themselves capable of 
dictating terms to the Imperial household and 
edicts to the Empire, so does a woman hold 
sway within the jurisdiction of the family. 
The fact that men, who can afford it, have 
a plurality of wives must lead to friction, no 
doubt, at times; yet officially ^* No. 1 '^ — that 
is, the first wife — rules, and she has a voice 
in the selection of other wives if there are 
any. The mother-in-law, however, is the ulti- 
mate authority in the household. She must 
be obeyed always and at all times. 

The hesitation of the Chinese women of 
the better classes as regards coming into the 



THINGS CHINESE 177 

public gaze is an old-time custom observed 
to the letter. A male visitor seldom sees 
them, and in the street, when ladies go out, 
they are ensconced in a chair with the blinds 
drawn, so that they are completely hidden 
from view. 

All Chinese ladies are supposed to have 
small feet ; only women of the laboring classes 
allow their feet to develop naturally ; but even 
in a relatively poor household it is an am- 
bition to bring up one girl of the family at 
least as a *^ lady,'' and she accordingly has 
her feet bound. Mrs. Archibald Little has 
done a great work in trying to induce the 
mothers of Chinese girls to give up foot- 
binding. The men declare they would like 
to see the custom done away with, but the 
women insist upon it, and it is owing to them 
that the children's feet are distorted. Sun 
intends, at the earliest possible moment, to 
legislate against the continuance of this cruel 
practice. This is no new departure, for ever 
since the tenth century a.d., when foot-binding 
is believed to have come into fashion, at- 
tempts have been made and edicts issued for- 
bidding foot-binding, but with no very 
marked result. The Manchu women do not 
bind their feet ; it is purely a Chinese custom. 
Children's feet are commenced to be ^* made 
small " at a very early age. The first band- 



178 SUN YAT SEN 

age is applied so that the outer toes are 
bent under the sole, whereby in time the big 
toe is alone seen when looking down upon 
the upper surface of the foot. Later the 
second set of bandages are applied, and by 
these the foot is bent back so that the ball 
of the big toe well-nigh or actually does touch 
the heel. These bandages are applied 
throughout life, and the power of walking is 
reduced to a minimum. A maid or relative 
has to be at hand for all but the simplest and 
shortest movement, in order to keep the small- 
footed woman from falling. The Chinese 
argue that the custom of tight-lacing common 
amongst European women is much more 
detrimental to the physique than foot-binding 
in China. The evident answer to these com- 
ments is, that in China the children's feet are 
distorted by the mother before the children 
can say yea or nay, whereas in Europe the 
mother tries to prevent the daughter tight- 
lacing; the girl, in fact, before she tight- 
laces has attained to years of discretion, and 
need not do it unless she pleases. Women in 
all parts of the earth attach importance to 
the smallness of their feet, and the women 
of one nation deride those of another, as 
the French do the English, about the large- 
ness of their feet. To get the feet to appear 
small, therefore, boots and shoes are worn 



THINGS CHINESE 179 

by European women of a size and shape to- 
tally at variance with comfort, and the feet 
become distorted and misshapen in conse- 
quence. 

No Chinese woman with small feet ever al- 
lows her feet to be seen by any one, not even 
her husband, without the bandages, and sim- 
ilarly few European women are proud of 
their bare feet, owing to the fact that they 
have been distorted in consequence of wear- 
ing boots or shoes several sizes, it may be, 
too small. The origin of the idea that small 
feet are a ^' thing of beauty " is lost in an- 
tiquity, but the result is seen to-day in the 
small feet of Chinese ladies, and in the at- 
tempts to make the feet look small at all 
hazards in Europe. Some say the distortion 
of the foot is done in China to prevent the 
women running away from their husbands 
or straying far from their homes at any 
time; others uphold them for aesthetic rea- 
sons, because the small-footed woman cannot 
stand without swaying about, and she ap- 
pears thereby more graceful — a '' waving 
golden lily.'' Why it is done in Europe is a 
mere relic of barbarism, but it is a custom 
which there would appear to be no sign of 
disappearing from amongst us. The ^ ' small- 
footed " woman in China, the " small- 
booted " woman in Europe, will be with us 



180 SUN YAT SEN 

for many days, in spite of all efforts to uproot 
the evil. 

Eecently in China, chiefly through the in- 
fluence and work of missionaries, Chinese 
girls are being taught to read and write. In 
several places they are being educated as 
doctors, and the fact that one can see many 
girls attending a medical course at Canton 
is a proof of the movement going on. A few 
Chinese women have found their way to the 
British Isles for the purpose of education. 
One of the most notable is Ronan-Woo (Mrs. 
Chang), who has just returned to China after 
attending the classes in the University of 
Aberdeen. Mrs. Chang is a niece of Yuan- 
Shih-Kai, and has done much to hasten re- 
form in China. Yuan was the adopted son 
of her grandfather, and Yuan and her father 
were brought up as brothers together. Her 
grandfather was General Woo, who fought 
in the Taiping Rebellion on the side of the 
Manchus ; her father was a magistrate, an ad- 
vanced reformer, who persistently advocated 
change in education and politics for China. 
Yuan-Shih-Kai and his (foster) brother 
agreed that reform was necessary, but they 
differed in one point, as Yuan was always in 
favor of retaining the Manchus or the pre- 
dominance of a sovereign, whilst Woo was in 
favor of a republic. So infatuated did Woo 



THINGS CHINESE 181 

become with the story of the French Revo- 
lution that he named one daughter Joan of 
Arc and the other after Madame Roland. At 
fifteen years of age Mrs. Chang had read 
Carlyle, Stuart Mill, and Spencer. She went 
to Japan, where she met Sun Yat Sen and 
became his firm adherent. Mrs. Chang pub- 
lished a pamphlet styled the ^ ^ Liberty Bell, ^ ' 
which had a wide circulation in the Flowery 
Kingdom. Her uncle, Yuan, wanted Mrs. 
Chang to take up teaching at Tientsin in the 
province of Chili, of which he was at the 
time Viceroy, but she declined. At the Lon- 
don School of Tropical Medicine Miss Ida 
Khan, another Chinese lady, studied for a 
time and showed marked ability. No one 
who has met either Mrs. Chang or Miss Khan 
could but be impressed with the verve, the 
sound common sense, and the general air of 
capability which characterize both. 

That the women of China are capable of 
playing an important part in their country's 
development is assured; that they will be 
asked to play a part is certain from Sun's 
statements on the subject. Many women have 
already helped the reformer's cause, several 
at the risk of their liberty and even of their 
lives, whilst some have even donned soldiers' 
uniform and fought in the ranks. Sun's in- 
tention is to give equal political rights to 



182 SUN YAT SEN 

men and women. It will not, however, be 
universal suffrage, for strict educational tests 
will be enforced in the case of both men and 
women claiming the vote ; and, as Mr. Diosy 
says, it would not be surprising if there were 
two Ministers of Education appointed, a man 
and a woman, presiding over the departments 
of male and female education respectively. 

From earliest days in the history of China 
education has been of paramount importance. 
Attaining knowledge is the *^ be-all and the 
end-all " of the literati, who constitute a very 
large class of men in China. Theoretically, 
and largely practically, advancement in Gov- 
ernment employment is in direct proportion 
to the amount of knowledge attained. Exam- 
ination halls are, or rather were, a prominent 
feature in the capital of every province. As 
many as 10,000 students would assemble for 
examination at a provincial capital. These 
examination halls were permanent buildings. 
A chamber or cell was assigned to each stu- 
dent; a high iron railing in front of the 
chamber door prevented exit or entrance for 
three days; the candidates took food in bas- 
kets, and water was placed in buckets outside 
the railings. Thither the best-trained pupils 
in the province went for competitive exam- 
inations annually, and after a long and rigid 
ordeal, carried out under supervision, a cer- 



THINGS CHINESE 183 

tain number of the best men were selected to 
proceed to the capital for competition for 
high posts in the Civil Service. 

The subject-matter of the examination 
was the Chinese classics for the most part, 
and in addition, essays were required and 
poetry was not forgotten. The actual value 
of the knowledge requisite to pass these ex- 
aminations seems to us perhaps worthless, 
but we must not forget that in our examina- 
tions for the highest posts in the Empire, 
namely, the Indian, Home, and Colonial Civil 
Services, the classics (Greek and Latin), es- 
says, and a knowledge of English literature 
are of the first importance. One may ask how 
the knowledge of Chinese classics could make 
a man a good viceroy of a province ; but sim- 
ilarly we may ask ourselves how an intimate 
knowledge of Latin and Greek can help our 
young men to deal out justice to a district 
in India or fit them for the multiplicity of 
administrative duties they are called upon to 
perform there. How well these young men 
manage Indian affairs is one of the marvels 
of government ; and how well China was ruled 
through thousands of years by men similarly 
trained is a matter not to be lightly thought 
of in the present turmoil. One naturally asks 
how with an ignorant, corrupt, and effete gov- 
ernment class in China the country was man- 



184 SUN YAT SEN 

aged through all these centuries. The answer 
is that '' the people ruled themselves." 

The parental system so keenly upheld and 
rigidly taught by Confucius is the keynote 
of organization through the length and 
breadth of China. For thousands of years 
the Chinese, as distinct from others of the 
Mongol race, have been a peaceful people; 
well bred in the sense of being capable of 
restraint; loving learning for learning's sake, 
and withal possessing a well-ordered civiliza- 
tion. Etiquette, ceremonial and politeness 
have been looked upon as the essences of 
behavior. Respect for seniors, mindful of 
what is due to authority, and rendering due 
honor to parents has been instilled into the 
very fibre of their being ever since Confucius 
taught. A people thus trained and educated 
are easily governed; the government com- 
mences in the family and all else follows. 
Neither the change of dynasties nor the in- 
roads of barbaric neighbors have altered the 
character of the Chinese by one jot or tittle, 
and it will be a bad day for China should 
these excellent traditions of their race be dis- 
turbed. 

In the national life of China the school- 
master plays a conspicuous and important 
part. Next to the parents the schoolmaster 
is held responsible for the children being well 



THINGS CHINESE 185 

brought up. To such a degree is this the 
case, that should at any time after leaving 
school a young man misbehave himself the 
schoolmaster is held largely responsible for 
the misdemeanor. Although the boy may 
have left school several years, if he misbe- 
haved upon the schoolmaster fell a meed of 
punishment, because he ought to have in- 
stilled better principles into the boy. Nor 
did the punishment cease here, for neighbors 
also suffered. A concrete example of the kind 
was told me by Dr. Sun Yat Sen himself. A 
son in an evil moment killed his father, when 
the punishment inflicted was as follows : Not 
only was the son beheaded, but also an uncle 
suffered the death penalty. The schoolmas- 
ter was exiled for 2,000 miles, and the neigh- 
bors, occupying the three houses on either 
side of the murdered man's dwelling, were 
condemned to leave their homes and not to 
take up residence within 1,000 miles of the 
village in which the murder occurred. A 
system of government of the kind may at 
times occasion an injustice to occur, but it 
has been effectual in keeping order in China. 
The people govern themselves, and good 
behavior in the community is well-nigh en- 
sured. That the teacher should be brought 
into the category of punishment appears, to 
our ideas, far-fetched, and were it acted upon 



186 SUN YAT SEN 

in Europe would bring home to our school- 
masters and our teachers of religion that the 
nature of their teachings has a responsibility 
which at present they are not supposed to 
bear. In Britain religious and moral teach- 
ing is being denounced by the so-called ^' ad- 
vanced '' directors of public thought. Ac- 
cording to many, there should be no moral 
or religious teaching given to the children in 
our schools ; they should be allowed to choose 
for themselves when they are old enough to 
decide. Had the regime operative in China 
been applied here, our schoolmasters and 
clergy would be punished if any of their pa- 
rishioners misbehaved themselves and came 
within the criminal law of the country. A 
wholesome doctrine which would serve us 
well, for were every criminal traced to his na- 
tive parish, and his clergyman held responsi- 
ble for his departure from paths of rectitude, 
it would stir our clergymen to become better 
acquainted with the daily life of their parish- 
ioners than they are at present. Apparently 
the ^' advanced thinkers '' of to-day would 
do away with all form of prophylaxis against 
the ^' disease of criminality '' — for it is a dis- 
ease—and the only thing we do is to treat the 
disease after it has manifested itself. The 
preventive measures — the business of the 
clergy— have been largely removed, and it is 



THINGS CHINESE 187 

only wlieii the signs and symptoms are pro- 
nounced that the ' ' doctor ' ' — in the shape of 
the policeman — is called in to treat the ail- 
ment. 

The Chinese system is quite scientific, ours 
is pure empiricism, a mere tinkering with 
the disease we call crime. Prevention by 
moral training is at a discount, restraint is 
abrogated to the limbo of ^' old-fashioned- 
ness," and being sent to prison is often suf- 
ficient to stamp those who break our laws 
as heroes, or more often heroines, and the 
highway to win a martyr's crown. With this 
mode of regulating conduct in China, with 
every province an independent state, the idea 
of a republican or federal system of govern- 
ment is no uprooting of principles. 

The monarchy has long been titular; its 
withdrawal is nothing more than the efface- 
ment of an idol or the heathen figure of a 
god. The Emperor has long been a mere 
^^ monarchical god," and just as the Chinese 
treat their war god, their sea god, and the 
numerous other gods which they set up to be 
dealt with as we treated witches and wise 
women — propitiating them when it suited us 
to do so, ridiculing them when we could afford 
to snap our fingers at them — the passing of 
the ^^ son of Heaven,'' or monarchical god, 
when he misbehaves is no more to the Chi- 



188 SUN YAT SEN 

nese than the whipping of one of their house- 
hold gods when he happens to disappoint 
them, or even breaking the god in pieces and 
scattering the fragments of the poor clay 
image to the winds. Of all people the Chinese 
are more ready to take up a federal system 
of government than any other, for they have 
practically been a republic, tolerating a mon- 
archical deity in theory, but really proceeding 
on federal lines for centuries. There is no 
fear for the future, there are capable men 
in China by the thousand; '' potent, grave, 
and reverend signiors, ' ' fit to rule a province 
or direct an empire. Let those who cherished 
the belief that a titular sovereign was neces- 
sary lay aside their fears, and with all con- 
fidence lend a hand to help this wonderful 
people to a better state of government than 
they have hitherto enjoyed. 

In commerce the Chinese has been a po- 
tent factor ever since he became known to 
the Western world. His commercial instinct 
is acute, his honesty in commercial transac- 
tions has become proverbial. British bankers 
in China tell us that in their banks the Chi- 
nese '' shroffs " and '' compradors " have 
the handling of their dollars, and that in 
many years of experience no dollar has ever 
** stuck to the shroffs' or compradors' palm." 
In the early days of commercial transactions 



THINGS CHINESE 189 

between Britain and China, when sailing- 
ships took a year to come and go between 
the countries, when there was no possibility 
of written documents being drawn up and 
duly signed, and the Chinese merchant's word 
was all that the ship captain had to go and 
come upon, there was no question of duplicity 
amongst the Chinese, no going back upon 
their word. When the ship captain returned 
to England and told his employers that he 
had made a contract with a Chinese to 
ship another cargo of tea or silk a twelve- 
month hence, they naturally asked to see the 
agreement. Documents, however, there were 
none, and the employers hesitated to believe 
the captain as to the trustworthiness of a 
contract of the kind. They did not know the 
Chinese as the ship captain did, and he con- 
tentedly undertook the long voyage to China, 
knowing that the word of the Chinese 
was as good as his bond, and that the bargain 
he had made verbally was a secure one. 
Should the market have gone against the 
Chinese merchant, he would actually supply 
the goods at a loss to himself, but the bargain 
would be faithfully kept. Did the merchant 
who undertook the contract die in the mean- 
time, his relatives would be instructed to 
carry out the transaction even if the family 
lost thereby. Even with the ^ ^ foreign devil ' ' 



190 SUN YAT SEN 

the bargain was a consecration to be fulfilled 
to the letter. Nor have the Chinese Govern- 
ment ever gone back upon their international 
financial undertakings with Europeans. At 
the very commencement of the recent out- 
break of hostilities at Hankow and neighbor- 
hood, the leaders of the Eeform Party posi- 
tively stated that they would honor and re- 
spect all financial undertakings and interna- 
tional agreements contracted by China up to 
the time of the commencement of hostilities. 
Every one who knows China and the Chi- 
nese was conscious that this pronouncement 
amounted to a bond; an undertaking which 
would be conscientiously carried out. Yet did 
the foreign financiers continue to *' flirt '' 
with the Manchus, and persuaded the Press 
that the Manchus, not the reformers, were the 
winning side. The contemplated loan which 
was being floated at the time of the outbreak 
for the benefit of the Manchus was upon the 
point of being ^' put through,'' when wiser 
counsels prevailed and advised postpone- 
ment. Had the loan '' gone through,'' Eu- 
rope would have been £10,000,000 poorer 
to-day. 

Had it been known that this rising was 
no " recurring row," but a universally preva- 
lent national upheaval, no mere faction or 
provincial rebellion, but instead a people de- 



THINGS CHINESE 191 

daring its mind, a movement that there was 
as much chance of stemming as to thwart the 
tide in its flow, there would have been no 
attempts to smother its importance in order 
to get the loan granted to the Manchu Gov- 
ernment. Evidently none of the financiers 
were sufficiently informed of the nature of 
the recent rising, otherwise some of them 
would have had the courage to grant a loan 
to the reformers, and not to bolster up the 
doomed Manchus. 

Those who contemplated advancing the 
loan in question sought information from 
their Governments, and from every possible 
source except the right one, namely, the peo- 
ple of China. These advisers pinned their 
faith in the old regime continuing. They 
clung to Yuan-Shih-Kai as drowning men to a 
straw until the whole fabric crumbled beneath 
them and a new China rose from the ruins. 
Still was Yuan's the name, the only name 
*' officialdom '' mentioned in this great up- 
heaval ; it persisted in believing Yuan would 
be able to '' save China '' by preserving the 
monarchy, and continued to lisp the name of 
a man without power, except that thrust upon 
him by the reformers, whom officialdom af- 
fected to despise. 

Affairs have managed Yuan, and not Yuan 
the affairs; as a diplomat he has long been 



192 SUN YAT SEN 

looked upon by the Cliinese as a failure, but 
regarded as a great soldier. They attribute, 
rightly or wrongly, the loss of Korea to his 
bungling. The death of the late Chinese Em- 
peror, an ardent advocate for reform, would 
not have taken place had Yuan not informed 
the late Dowager Empress Yehonala of what 
was contemplated. Had Yuan had foresight 
or a spark of diplomatic genius, not to men- 
tion patriotism, in his composition, he would 
never have allowed the late Emperor to have 
been ^ ^ removed ' ' ; he would have guided him 
and advised him to keep quiet until nature in 
due course had called the Dowager Empress 
away, when he would have been left to rule 
alone on modern lines, and thereby saved the 
Manchus from expulsion and preserved a 
monarchy for China. The Chinese say, '' We 
may grant respect to Yuan for his position, 
but he is a product of Manchu rule and can 
never be accepted whole-heartedly by the 
Chinese. Sun Yat Sen is loved universally 
and the people will follow his teaching and 
principles devotedly." 

Had Sun not been the great man he is, 
moderate in council, sacrificing everything 
for his country, with difficulty persuaded 
from retiring to his native village and taking 
up life as he began, there would have been 
disturbances in the foreign relations of China. 



THINGS CHINESE 193 

Sun has, diplomatically, little to thank for- 
eign nations for, except perhaps France. It 
was largely by French sympathy that Chiaa 
was allowed to work out her own salvation; 
and it is this Sun alone thinks of, not of the 
neglect, the slights, the churlish contempt for 
him and his doings displayed by ^^ authori- 
ties.'' Whilst Sun has little to thank for- 
eigners for, they, on the other hand, have 
much to thank him for. Their trouble in 
China arose from the exclusiveness, not of 
the Chinese people, but of the Manchu rulers. 
In the times of the Ming (Chinese) rulers 
the country was open to foreigners for travel, 
for commerce, for exploiting any new reli- 
gion without let or hindrance. The masses 
of the Chinese, under the Manchus, have been 
taught to hate the foreigner ; his presence has 
been upheld as a constant slight to the dignity 
of China; and even now were a powerful 
leader to direct a campaign of expulsion not 
all the might of Europe could repress it. 
Japan successfully defied the ^' might '' of 
Eussia, and altered the balance of power in 
the world. China has many resources and 
plans of campaign in addition to, and in place 
of, the power of arms. 

Just now China would seem to be at the 
mercy of any nation or group of nations; it 
is well not to count too implicitly on this, but 



194 SUN YAT SEN 

to be thankful that tlie spirit and principles 
which direct Sun Yat Sen are in the as- 
cendant, for whilst he has power to guide and 
advise, there need be no anxiety. The people 
may prove too strong for Sun to control, when 
they find their great leader is regarded by 
foreigners as of no account in the national 
councils and that Yuan is alone deemed wor- 
thy of recognition; and the position of for- 
eigners may become an awkward one. Let- 
ters from Europeans in high position in 
China which appeared in the Press in this 
country were ill-advised, and still further 
seek to belittle Sun Yat Sen at the expense of 
Yuan. The newspaper before me now, dated 
April 8, 1912, has an example of the style 
of article referred to. After devoting a col- 
umn to Sun's intended doings in a sarcastic 
sense, the writer ends up by asking, ^ ' I won- 
der what stout old Yuan-Shih-Kai will have 
to say in the matter! " It is sincerely to be 
hoped that Yuan has the power and capacity 
his foreign admirers endow him with, and 
that he will carry out the work in the high 
position Sun has conferred upon him by re- 
signing in his favor. 

Even now foreign authorities smile at Sun 
and his doings ; they almost invariably refer 
to his name apologetically, and any reference 
to his work or his statements ends up with 



THINGS CHINESE 195 

a slighting remark derogatory to him per- 
sonally and laudatory to Yuan. It is a fetish, 
a cult, that one who knows the world quite 
understands. Sun cannot be bought or sold; 
he cannot be driven from his purpose; he 
despises publicity, and remains the same hon- 
est, simple, bewitching character, although he 
has tasted of the highest position it is possi- 
ble to think of. 

Such a man is hopeless from a diplomatic 
point of view; to financiers he is impossible; 
he is the stumbling-block of company pro- 
moters and an incessant vexation to the 
would-be interviewer. Sun will never be pop- 
ular with ^' authorities "; a man without an 
axe to grind is impossible to deal with in a 
committee, a council, a parliament, or a cab- 
inet. His position resembles that of a doc- 
tor in public affairs ; he has not only no axe 
of his own to grind, but he brings forward 
and supports schemes to improve the health 
of the community and thereby injures his own 
practice; he advocates hygienic schemes 
which when developed may bring him to want. 
Such a man, were he not a doctor, would 
be called a fool ; but the doctor is expected to 
behave thus. So with Sun Yat Sen; he is a 
patriot and nothing more, and not all the 
wiles of financiers or the intrigues of diplo- 
macy will ever cause him to deviate or make 



196 SUN YAT SEN 

him a party politician. It may be liis train- 
ing as a doctor that helped to bring him 
under the ban, and caused the '' authorities " 
on China to pass him by as a negligible quan- 
tity or an insignificant cipher in China's 
councils. 

But if those in high places thus lightly re- 
gard a man of science, the people as a whole 
hold him in high esteem, for in no way can 
a nation be judged as to its position in the 
scale of civilization better than by a study of 
the position the art and science of medicine 
holds within the realm. 

As in other branches of activity, China re- 
lapsed from an early period of what may 
justly be regarded as an advanced position 
amongst nations in the art of medicine, to 
a state of stagnation which has continued 
until the present day. 

We have it on fairly good evidence that 
4,500 years ago the Chinese had an inkling at 
least of the circulation of the blood; 3,000 
years ago it is a fact that they performed 
several operations skilfully and successfully; 
as long as 2,400 years ago they had systema- 
tized massage ; and an accurate knowledge of 
mercury as a drug existed a couple of cen- 
turies before the Christian era; and about the 
fifth century a.d. serious operations, such as 
removing tumors from the abdomen, trephin- 




Fig. I 

THE PANTAGRAMME, SHOWING THE 
YANG AND THE YU, THE MALE 
AND FEMALE ELEMENTS OF CREA- 
TION, IN THE CENTRE 

(See text) 



THINGS CHINESE 197 

ing the skull, &c., were frequently performed. 
At an early period specialism in medicine 
and surgery was in an advanced state. 
There were specialists for diseases of the 
eye, chest, abdomen, skin, women, children, 
bone-setters, dentists, pain-killers, bruise- 
curers, gland doctors, military surgeons, 
snake-bite curers, masseurs, corn-cutters, 
midwives, ship surgeons, faith healers, and 
miscellaneous doctors, in other words, gen- 
eral practitioners. So specialized, in fact, did 
the medical art become, that on external doc- 
tors or surgeons and internal doctors or phy- 
sicians meeting in consultation over a case 
of an arrow-wound, the surgeon would nip 
off the arrow at the point where it protruded 
from the skin, but the part beneath the skin 
was left to the internal doctor to deal with. 

Medical practice in course of time became 
mere adherence to ancient custom, and was 
completely subordinate to authority and 
tradition. Any one could set up as a doc- 
tor; a coolie, who through injury or laziness 
gave up manual work, would after a fort- 
night's study put up his " sign " and start 
practice. In the higher grades an apprentice- 
ship was served before practice was com- 
menced, and in the highest circle of all a 
knowledge of the points of the body at which 
needle puncture could be, and should be, made 



198 SUN YAT SEN 

had to be displayed before the Eoyal Phy- 
sicians in the capital. Hereditary instinct 
and inheritance was a passport to recom- 
mendation for a doctor, and as early as the 
Chow dynasty the public were warned against 
swallowing any medicine compounded by a 
doctor whose family had not been three gen- 
erations in the medical profession. Chinese 
medical literature is voluminous, but with it 
all there is scarcely an item given that can 
be seized upon on which to found a theory or 
establish a fact. 

The basis of things mortal finds expression 
in, China in the figure known as the Panta- 
gramme (Fig. 1). In the centre is the infinite 
void or universe, divided into two pear- 
shaped bodies by a double curved line, repre- 
senting the male and female principle, the 
Yang and the Yu. Attendant upon these di- 
agrammatic elements are eight symbols, of 
which four only have been interpreted. The 
uppermost, represented by three lines, is the 
male (Yang) symbol; the lowermost, by six 
short lines, signifies the female (Yu) prin- 
ciple; on the extreme right, consisting of a 
long central line and four attendant lines, is 
the symbol for Water; and on the extreme 
left, two lines with two intervening shorter 
lines indicates Fire. The four intervening 
sets of lines defied even Confucius to inter- 



Female Reservoir 



Male Reservoir 




Fig. 2 

SCHEME OF THE CONSTITUTION 

OF MAN 



(See text) 



THINGS CHINESE 199 

pret ; and the fact that not only was the figure 
in existence in his day, 447 b.c, but that the 
actual meaning of it had been lost before his 
time, shows the antiquity of this mythical 
symbol. The diagram giving ^' the scheme 
of the constitution of man " (Fig. 2) indi- 
cates a further advance in the knowledge of 
the principles of physiology, although the 
scheme is altogether incomprehensible to 
modern observers. The idea seems to be that 
there are two reservoirs. One, the inner, the 
female or negative, is represented by the 
inner circle, in which the '^ influence " passes 
from No. 1, the Heart, to No. 2, the Lungs, 
thence to No. 3, the Liver, and on to No. 4, 
the Spleen, then to No. 5, the Kidney, and 
finally, as the line indicates, it travels back 
again to the heart. 

The outer circle represents the male reser- 
voir, in which A indicates the stomach ; B, the 
large intestine; C, the ureter or duct from 
the kidney; D, the gall-bladder, and E the 
small intestine. Below is the figure of the 
Swastika, towards which the outlets of the 
several organs concerned in the female reser- 
voir empty, and beneath the Swastika the 
ducts leading from the organs of the male 
reservoir find exit. 

The anatomical figure (Fig. 3) represent- 
ing the position and relation of the different 



200 SUN YAT SEN 

organs of the body according to Chinese con- 
ception is scarcely in accordance with mod- 
ern research. The heart will be readily rec- 
ognized by its shape and position; beneath 
the heart is the diaphragm, the function of 
which was not regarded as being that of 
breathing as we have it, but served as a par- 
tition to keep down the fetid vapors which 
emanate from the organs of digestion beneath 
it. The body, in fact, is held to consist of 
two regions : the part above the diaphragm — 
the parlor or more genteel portion of the 
economy; and the parts below — the kitchen 
or culinary department of the body, and from 
whence the fetid vapors arise. The more 
prominent features of the anatomy, such as 
the brain, the lungs, and windpipe, the gullet, 
stomach, and intestines, &c., are to be recog- 
nized by a perusal of the picture, but the dis- 
tribution of the large vessels connected with 
the heart and several other items do not fit 
in with modern anatomy. 

All nations have had their periods of the 
mythical in the healing art ; and tradition has 
affected humanity in medicine as in every- 
thing else; nor with all our '' liberal " educa- 
tion have we got rid of mysticism and the 
occult in medicine, and it is not likely we 
ever shall. In the list of specialists in medi- 
cine in China in the remote past we find ex-- 




Fig. 3 

AN ANATOMICAL FIGURE ACCORDING TO 
CHINESE CONCEPTION 

I. Heart; 2. Liver; 3. Gall Bladder; 4. Lungs; 5. Kidney; 
6. Stomach ; 7. Brain and Spinal Cord ; 8 & 9- Intestines ; 
10. Bladder; 11. Windpipe; 12. Intestine: 13 & M- Outlets. 



THINGS CHINESE 201 

amples in modern reversions to the original 
type among ourselves. Bone-setters are with 
us now, and are a class patronized especially 
by the football fraternity, who go to their 
bruise-curers as European women go to 
Lourdes, or Chinese women to the Brass Mule 
in Peking. Faith-healers of ancient China 
are represented amongst us to-day by 
Shakers, Christian Scientists, Theosophists, 
or by one of the many beliefs and 
practices which rise up with persistent 
regularity under various names, only to 
disappear before others still more soul- 
absorbing in their appeal to the degenerates. 
Let us see to the mote in our own eye before 
posing and pitying the ^ * poor deluded ' ' Chi- 
nese for their ways and customs. As we 
show signs of reversion in many quarters, the 
Chinese on the other hand are going forward. 
They are clamoring for education; the mis- 
sionaries once held at arm's length are now 
implored to teach philosophy, geography, his- 
tory, science, or any department of modern 
knowledge. A people to whom education is a 
passion have become aware that the knowl- 
edge they have been allowed to acquire has 
been limited to as much of the ritual of Con- 
fucius and other writers as their Manchu 
rulers thought fit to let them have. The 
repetition of these at schools led to nothing, 



202 SUN YAT SEN 

taught them nothing, and left them in ig- 
norance. Suddenly a new era has dawned, 
the people are acquiring modern knowledge 
with avidity, and all prohibitions concern- 
ing the reading of books from which real 
knowledge can be acquired are removed. 

Dr. Sun Yat Sen, whilst yet a boy, saw and 
understood the uselessness and senselessness 
of education in Chinese schools, and knew 
full well that an intimate acquaintance with 
the Chinese classics led to nothing. He 
longed for instruction in science, and it was 
this desire that brought him to the medical 
college in Hong Kong the moment it was 
opened ; he was the first student and the first 
graduate. The sciences of botany, chemistry, 
zoology, &c., with which all medical teaching 
commences, opened new worlds to him, and 
every branch of study served to satisfy this 
son of intelligent China, a product of several 
generations of men whose brains had been 
famished by being deprived of the intellectual 
food which was their portion before the Man- 
chus came and whilst yet the Mings held 
sway. Sun studied medicine as he has 
studied everything else, ardently. The lib- 
eral education medicine gives has stood him 
in good stead; since his energies have been 
directed to other spheres of activity he has 
had to study international law, military tac- 



THINGS CHINESE 203 

tics, naval construction, finance in all its de- 
partments, statecraft, and politics in all its 
bearings. He has visited many countries, and 
studied their institutions and modes of gov- 
ernment. When residing with us in Lon- 
don, Sun wasted no moments in gaieties; he 
was for ever at work, reading books on all 
subjects which appertained to political, diplo- 
matic, legal, military, and naval matters; 
mines and mining, agriculture, cattle-rearing, 
engineering, political economy, &c., occupied 
his attention and were studied closely and 
persistently. The range of his opportuni- 
ties for acquiring knowledge has been such 
as few men have ever had, and the result is 
known to us. Sun Yat Sen is without doubt 
the man possessed of the widest and most 
liberal education in China to-day. Learning 
is the one quality that the Chinese respect 
above all others, and Sun's position to-day is 
due as much perhaps to his learning as to his 
unselfish patriotism and untiring efforts for 
his country's good. 



IX 
THE FIGHT WITH OPIUM 

NO account of the Chinese Eevolution 
can be accepted as complete that does 
not touch, however lightly, on the ex- 
traordinary efforts that China has put forth 
during the last few years to shake herself 
free from the insidious tyranny of the opium 
habit — a habit that in no small degree con- 
tributed to the inhuman inertia and deadly 
lethargy of spirit which to Westerners seemed 
to be permanently characteristic of the im- 
passive Celestial. The story of China's de- 
liverance from opium proves the contrary, 
and is one of the most inspiring that has ever 
been written of struggling humanity. It has 
moved even Cabinet Ministers to enthusiasm. 
Said Mr. Montagu, Under-Secretary of State 
for India : ^^ Few reforms have been so mar- 
vellous in the history of the world as the 
determined, manful, courageous effort which 
the Chinese had made and were making to 
rid themselves of that terrible curse. They 
had made and were making progress which 
nobody, not even the Chinese themselves, 

304 



THE FIGHT "WITH OPIUM 205 

could have prophesied as being possi- 
ble a few short years ago.'' This is warm 
praise, but no stronger than the facts 
justify, and those who still profess scepticism 
as to the permanence of the change that has 
come over China, and who confidently affirm 
that the revolution and the Eepublic are alike 
of mushroom growth, to pass away as swiftly 
as they came, cannot do better than study 
this chapter of the history of the '^ unchang- 
ing East "; for most clearly does it demon- 
strate that, once the Celestial has really re- 
solved on his objective, once his mind is 
made up about it in earnest, then he brings 
to bear on its attainment an unsleeping 
energy that nothing can resist, and that, as 
some one put it, *^ leaves the world lost in 
astonishment." 

This has proved to be the case with opium. 
Five years ago Great Britain negotiated 
what has been called the '' ten years' agree- 
ment " with China. Put shortly, its terms 
were these : We, on behalf of India, under- 
took to reduce the amount of opium sold in 
Calcutta on Government account for export 
to China by 10 per cent, every year until the 
traffic had finally ceased. There was, of 
course, an equivalent, indeed a much greater, 
undertaking on the part of China. She cov- 
enanted to diminish her own production 



206 SUN YAT SEN 

coterminously with our supplies. Think 
what this meant! Opium- smoking had be- 
come the national vice of China, as certainly 
as alcoholism is ours. The habit had per- 
meated every class of society. The idea that 
only the low-grade Chinese indulges in the 
opium pipe is, of course, fictitious. The busi- 
ness man, the Court official, the nobles — all 
were addicted to a habit so deep-rooted as 
to make its eradication seem almost impos- 
sible, a habit as common as is tea-drinking 
here. The Chinese Government said, in ef- 
fect, that it must cease within ten years. 
Small wonder that the edict was food for 
smiles everywhere — except in China. The 
most determined enemies of the opium traffic 
thought that the Government were courting 
disaster by attempting to achieve in a decade 
what it might take two or three generations 
to accomplish. Scarcely any one dared to 
hope for success, and it seemed that China 
had entered on an impossible task. Quite 
apart from the fearful hold which the opium 
habit had gained over hundreds and thou- 
sands of Chinese, there was another factor 
which made its eradication most difficult— 
the loss of revenue to the small farmer, to 
whom the cultivation of the poppy was a val- 
uable '' side line." Opium, it must be re- 
membered, is extremely portable. The 



THE FIGHT WITH OPIUM 207 

farmer found it easy to carry to market. He 
could put the whole product of several fields 
on his back and sell it readily and profitably. 
The Government proposed to deprive him 
of this most welcome addition to his income. 
More, all officials who took opium were to 
be turned out of Government employ. Opium 
dens were to be closed and opium-smokers 
held up to public ridicule. Nearly every one 
prophesied failure. The very missionaries 
who had carried on a crusade against opium 
for years sadly shook their heads. Failure 
seemed inevitable. 

And then what happened? Travellers re- 
ported that, whereas opium-smoking was 
once so common a vice that you could see 
men puffing a pipe at their own doors, two 
years after the edict those who smoked, 
smoked secretly. Lord "William Gascoyne- 
Cecil, in his fascinating book, '^ Changing 
China,'' tells of the extraordinary difference 
those two years made in the aspect of the land. 
On his first visit the country, as seen from 
the railway between Hankow and Harbin, 
was exquisite with the white and pink crops 
of poppy, ^^ resembling the transformation 
scene at a variety theatre. ' ' But on his next 
journey every poppy had disappeared. The 
edict was being enforced! Men were going 
to the missionaries asking for some cure or 



208 SUN YAT SEN 

relief from the terrible suffering that the 
cessation of the opium habit brought. Others 
died from the strain. Morphia syringes be- 
gan to make their appearance, for many 
sought relief in hypodermic injections. But 
the elimination of the poppy went on. In 
Yunnan, the province which formerly had the 
largest proportion of poppy growth, opium 
gave way to silk and cotton cultivation. In 
other districts the production of cereals 
enormously increased. In Chekiang, the 
Statistical Secretary stated: ^^ It is satis- 
factory to be informed that the decrease in 
the importation of rice at Ningpo, which 
amounted to the value of 3,300,000 Hk. taels 
($2,500,000), and which by so much reduced 
the total of native imports, was made good 
by the produce of lands lately rescued from 
the poppy in the prefecture of Taichow." 

In many provinces total prohibition was 
resorted to, and the punishment that fol- 
lowed its infraction was death. The success 
of these repressive measures and the im- 
mensity of the undertaking of the Chinese 
Government may be realized by a glance at 
the extremely interesting map here produced 
by kind permission of the Society for the 
Suppression of the Opium Trade. ' 

^ *The three sets of figures are (1) the estimates of opium cul- 
tivation in each province contained in the Report on Opium 



THE FIGHT WITH OPIUM 209 

All this was done only at the cost of im- 
mense pecuniary sacrifice. India has, so far, 
actually gained by the diminution in the 
growth. For, so far as she is concerned, 
the only reasonable computation proceeds on 
the average receipts before the recent agree- 
ment was made. On that basis the net annual 
revenue from opium sent to China amounted 
to £2,489,000, and the first year's loss to the 
Indian revenue should have amounted to 
£248,900, and in three years to thrice that 
sum, viz., £746,700. Indeed, it was under- 
stood that the Indian Government, looking 
forward to the gradual reduction during ten 
years, calculated on eleven or twelve millions 
sterling as likely to be China's contribution 
to India's opium revenue before the trade 
was abolished. Whilst, according to the most 
reasonable computation, India's revenue 
from opium sent to China should, during 
those first three years of the agree- 
ment, have been £1,991,200, £1,742,300, and 
£1,493,400 respectively, the result has been 
far otherwise. Instead of steadily diminish- 



in China, prepared at the British Legation in Peking in 1907, 
and published in the official White Paper, China, No. 1 
(1908) ; (2) and (3), the estimates of opium cultivation in 1906 
and 1908, presented to the Shanghai Opium Commission by 
the Chinese delegation. Since then, further great reductions 
have been made. 



210 SUN YAT SEN 

ing, her revenue from opium sent to China 
has been largely increased as follows : — 

Total Opium 

Keceipts From China 

1908-09 £4,648,700 £3,867,700 

1909-10 4,418,200 3,637,200 

1910-11 6,460,000 5,697,000 

That is to say, that the Indian Treasury, in- 
stead of receiving as the result of the first 
three years of the agreement the sum of 
£5,226,900, has actually received the sum of 
£13,183,900, or something like two millions 
sterling beyond her reasonable hope for the 
whole ten years. Indeed, India's revenue 
from opium sent to China this last year is 
far greater than in any year for a long time 
past. The sales have diminished by 15,300 
chests, and yet the revenue has enormously 
increased. Whence has the increase come! 
The explanation is only too easy. The dimi- 
nution of China's output by seven and a half 
tenths has raised the price of Indian opium 
along the coast of China to an enormous de- 
gree. In a multitude of places there is now 
not a grain of Chinese opium to be had, and 
the wealthier confirmed smokers are ready 
to pay 300 to 500 per cent, for the Indian 
drug to relieve their horrible craving. 
China's eagerness to be rid of the national 



THE FIGHT WITH OPIUM 211 

curse is being paid for at a ransom price. 
And lest any should say that these high 
prices for Indian opium are just the fluctua- 
tions of the market, we have only to note the 



MAP TO SHOW WHAT CHINA HAS DONE 




MAP OF OPIUM PEODUCTION .IN CHINA* 

extraordinary efforts made by the holders of 
opium for other countries to bring that opium 
to China, efforts that are entirely opposed 
to the spirit of the agreement. 
Let us look now more nearly at China's 



212 SUN YAT SEN 

pecuniary sacrifice over against India's gain. 
India computed her own normal loss at 
£248,900 a year, or in the three years £746,- 
700. And the two elements involved in China 's 
loss are (1) all the surplus that India has 
gained in these three years, amounting in all 
to £7,957,000, and (2) whatever may be esti- 
mated as the value of the opium relinquished 
for the sake of the national welfare. She 
has given up, not 15,300 chests, like India, 
but 438,800 chests, and computing this 
for a moment at what was the Indian 
opium price at the beginning of the 
agreement, we find that it amounts to 
£746,000 (India's loss on 15,300 chests) 

X 28 (^^^fi991, or £20,888,000; and 
(15,300) ' ^ ^ y 

adding the two items together we have 

the enormous sacrifice of £28,845,000. It 

may be said that this is putting the value of 

Chinese opium at too high a rate, but if we 

take five millions sterling from it we still 

have the enormous sum of over £23,845,000.^ 

No one can doubt that China will recover 

these lost millions. But who will deny that 

their sacrifice, at a moment in her history 

^ For this analysis of the financial aspects of the question, 
and for the figures given in support thereof, the authors are 
Indebted to Dr. Maxwell, the Chairman of the Board of the 
British Anti-Opium Societies. 



THE FIGHT WITH OPIUM 213 

when she needed money more than ever be- 
fore, when in fact her exchequer was drained, 
does not prove her grim earnestness? 
Surely the time has passed for despising a 
people with such vast reserves of energy, 
such unconquerable resolution. Enfeebled 
and corrupt China may have been. Not so 
now. She has crushed the poppy beneath her 
feet and at last she is aroused. 



THE FUTUEE OF CHINA 

WHAT is to be the future of China ! 
On what lines will the great Ee- 
public of the East develop? Will 
she retain any, and which, of the characteris- 
tics that marked the Celestial Empire — that 
Empire which for centuries seemed imper- 
vious to change? Now that at last change 
has come, what will be the consequences? — 
first, upon the situation in the Far East; 
then upon the world at large — the world that, 
accustomed to discount China as a supine 
giant whom nothing could rouse, now has to 
realize that her awakening liberates a force, 
strange and incalculable, that must be reck- 
oned with. 

These questions are of profound, of far- 
reaching importance. No one who has tried 
to realize the stupendous industrial and com- 
mercial possibilities that hinge upon the 
opening of China; no one who has even 
faintly comprehended all that a Yellow Peril 
might mean to Europe, can fail to grasp 
their significance, for upon them, or rather 

214 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 215 

upon the answers of history during the next 
half-century, it may well be that the whole 
fabric of our civilization depends. To try 
and anticipate history would be foolish in- 
deed. Prophecy, we know, is ever the most 
gratuitous form of error. But from the many 
perplexities of the situation at least one or 
two cardinal facts stand clearly out — facts 
that properly considered may serve in some 
measure as pointers for the future. They 
indicate unmistakably in what respects the 
new China will, and must, differ from the 
Empire that has gone by for ever. 

First, then, between the old China and the 
new there is one great gulf fixed. The 
Chinese of yore, he whose neck was bowed 
beneath the yoke of the Mongol or the Man- 
chu (foreigners both), was taught to despise 
the soldier, and despise him he did. Learn- 
ing, scholarship, these he revered, even when 
they were wholly divorced from the realities 
of life and given over to the memorizing of 
dead classics. But the soldier, the man who 
went down fighting against odds for his 
country, was akin to the barbarian, at best a 
necessary evil. A Chinese writer explains 
this inferiority thus: *^ First,'' he says, 
*^ comes the scholar: because his mind is su- 
perior to wealth, and it is the intellect that 
distinguishes man above the lower order of 



216 SUN YAT SEN 

beings and enables him to find food and rai- 
ment and shelter for himself and for other 
creatures. Second, the farmer: because the 
mind cannot act without the body, and the 
body cannot exist without food, so that farm- 
ing is essential to the existence of man, es- 
pecially in civilized society. Third, the me- 
chanic: because, next to food, shelter is a 
necessity, and the man who builds a house 
comes next in honor to the man who provides 
food. Fourth, the tradesman: because, as 
society increases and its wants are multi- 
plied, men to carry on exchange and barter 
become a necessity, and so the merchant 
comes into existence. His occupation — 
* shaving ' both sides, the producer and the 
consumer — tempts him to act dishonestly, 
hence his low grade. Fifth, the soldier 
stands last and lowest in the list, because his 
business is to destroy and not to build up 
society. He consumes what others produce, 
but produces nothing himself that can bene- 
fit mankind. He is, perhaps, a necessary 
evil.'' 

All this the Eevolution has changed. 
Never again will the Chinese despise the 
profession of arms or seek to degrade valor. 
It was from no mere accident, but by a de- 
liberate act of great significance, that Sun 
Yat Sen inspected the Chinese Fleet the day 



THE FUTUEE OF CHINA 217 

following his selection as President of the 
Provisional Republic. Again, almost the 
first proclamation that Republic issued was 
to call for a conscript army. The fact is that 
China has had hammered into her the old les- 
son that a country can know nothing of real 
dignity, let alone security or peace, unless 
she is prepared to fight for them with her 
own right arm, and that scholar, farmer, 
tradesman, and merchant alike, all are de- 
pendent on the soldier for freedom to follow 
their avocations. During the past few years, 
the proud Celestial has had heaped upon his 
head humiliation after humiliation from 
hands he despised. Consider for a moment 
how the events of the past decade and a 
half must have appeared to him. 

First came the challenge to his suzerainty 
over Korea. Then followed the war with 
the Japanese — China's pupils till recently — 
whose claims were regarded with amused 
contempt, and by whom the Chinese were so 
soundly thrashed that they had to appeal to 
the European Powers to protect their terri- 
tory. Their pride was soon to sustain a 
deeper wound. Two German missionaries 
were murdered by a mob of fanatics. Noth- 
ing would placate the inexorable German but 
a part of the Celestial Empire itself, and 
Kiao-chou was ceded. Then came the Boxer 



218 SUN YAT SEN 

Eising and the terrible vengeance exacted by 
the Powers for the outrages committed — ^the 
sack of the capital, the loot of cities, the dis- 
honor of women as the allied troops passed 
through the country burning, devastating, 
pillaging. 

Yet their cup of humiliation was not full, 
for the Eusso-Japanese War broke out — to 
be fought not in Korea, not in Eussian, not 
in Japanese territory, but in Manchuria, 
which belonged to China, with whom neither 
combatant was at war — an unmistakable in- 
dication to the world at large that the Celes- 
tial Empire had ceased to count! 

Small wonder that these things should 
have burnt themselves into the soul of the 
Chinese, and that even before the Eevolution 
he should have set about the task of reorgan- 
izing his army in earnest. *^ Is there no 
higher power than that? '^ asks the highly 
cultured young lady in ^' Major Barbara,'' 
pointing to a shell. '' Yes," is the answer; 
'' but that power — the shell — can destroy the 
higher powers as a tiger can kill a man. 
Therefore it is necessary that man must mas- 
ter that power first." And in some such 
spirit the Chinese realizes that the culture 
of his beloved literati and the revered tombs 
of his ancestors will not be proof of them- 
selves against the invading foreigner. We 



THE FUTUEE OF CHINA 219 

may take it, then, that the first essential dif- 
ference between the China of to-day and the 
defunct Empire is that the Republic will 
strive to become a great military power. 

Already English and American officers are 
on their way to train the revolutionaries, al- 
ready the latest type of quick-firing guns 
have been despatched to the Republican Gov- 
ernment. Consider for a moment what a 
prospect this opens up! China has a popu- 
lation four hundred million strong. Once 
her people become proficient in the use of 
arms, she can face fearful losses in battle 
with comparative equanimity — ^losses that 
would stagger any combination of European 
Powers. It may be said, it is still widely 
believed, that the Chinese cannot be got to 
fight, that he is at heart a coward, and that 
he will never stand punishment like Euro- 
pean troops. Facts do not support this 
theory. Those who have seen the Chi- 
nese in action under competent leaders speak 
of him as a magnificent soldier. Lord Elgin 
praised most highly the Tartar cavalry. 
Gordon often could not find words to ex- 
press his admiration of his own Chinese 
troops, and his diary teems with tributes 
both to their bravery and to that of the rebels 
he was fighting. Of one battle, he said that 
never in his experience of the Crimea had 



220 SUN YAT SEN 

he witnessed anything like the hand-to-hand 
fighting for fierceness and determination; 
and when we recall some of the battles of 
the Crimea this praise ought to be conclusive 
as to the mettle and endurance of the Chinese 
soldier. The English officers who com- 
manded the Wei-Hai-Wei regiments and 
those who led the Chinese volunteers at the 
siege of Peking spoke as warmly as Gor- 
don, and it is reported (so says Lord Gas- 
coyne-Cecil in his '' Changing China ") that 
the Chinese soldiers at the siege of Tientsin 
would carry the wounded out of the range 
of fire when no European was forthcoming 
for the task. 

The fact is that the almost open contempt 
of the Chinese for soldiering has misled 
European observers into thinking him a 
skulker and a runaway. But the battlefield 
proves the contrary. The contempt was only 
part and parcel of a general mental attitude 
— an attitude that has passed completely 
away. Says Mr. Putnam Weale in his book 
''The Struggle Eound the Far East '^ 
'' The general military organization in China 
is now undoubtedly far better than it has 
ever been before. At such places as Kiu 
Kiang, Soochow, and Foochow, the writer 
bas recently seen battalion after battalion 
(each the nucleus of a future divisional or- 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 221 

ganization) turn out, relatively speaking, 
well clothed, well armed, and exceedingly- 
well drilled/' The same authority quotes a 
secret memorandum setting forth the details 
of the Chinese Army, according to which, 
*^ just before the great autumn manoeuvres 
of 1906, provision had been made for the 
creation of 18 major units or divisions, 
divided up on the Japanese-Grerman brigade 
and regimental system, and therefore com- 
prising 36 infantry brigades, or 72 regiments 
(making a total of 216 infantry battalions, 
72 squadrons of cavalry, and 152 batteries 
of artillery). Of these corps ten divisions 
were almost complete before the end of 1906, 
while eight divisions consisted merely of 
skeleton corps. 

^* Shortly after the memorandum was 
drawn up, the organization of an additional 
division was begun in North China by Yuan- 
Shih-Kai, making the seventh division in 
North China; while the Canton division, sev- 
eral battalions of which have already been 
recruited, was also comprised in the general 
scheme, being designated No. 20, and was or- 
dered to bring the skeleton regiments up to 
full strength as quickly as possible. Further, 
the transfer of troops to Manchuria began 
on a big scale in April, 1907, and will now 
be followed by the creation of new corps. 



222 SUN YAT SEN 

Probably four divisions will at first be de- 
tailed for duty in Manchuria; and it may 
therefore be assumed that the immediate 
work of Lu Chun Pu, Minister of War, will 
be the completion of an army of twenty-four 
divisions, which will number some 300,000 
men of all arms on a peace footing, and which 
will possess, when the artillery parks have 
been fully organized, no less than 1,216 field 
and mountain guns." 

This may be taken as indicating the maxi- 
mum of China's immediate military re- 
sources. But it is of value for the moment 
only. Nothing is more certain than that the 
Eepublicans intend to organize the military 
resources of China on a vast scale and under 
the most efficient guidance they can secure. 

What will be the effect of this new force 
upon the balance of power in the Far East I 
How far will it menace the hold on China 
that the Powers have secured! Will it, for 
instance, ultimately mean notice to quit to 
Europe? 

Ultimately, it may. At present there is 
no possibility of such an event. But in other 
directions the army that China can now mus- 
ter will almost certainly lead to far-reaching 
consequences. For instance, as Mr, Putnam 
Weale truly points out, if China can create 
a force strong enough to convince the occu- 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 223 

pants of Manchuria that she is in a position 
to resume the complete mastery of her out- 
lying territories, * * a new series of evacuation 
treaties may have to be prepared.^' It is 
scarcely credible that a demand for these 
treaties would lead to any difficulties that 
statesmanship cannot surmount. The day 
has passed when the Powers found Chinese 
diplomacy impossible. Indeed, if there be 
one result of the Revolution more certain 
than another, it is that the relations between 
China and Europe have entered definitely 
upon a new chapter, free from the irritating 
absurdities, the suspicions and hostilities of 
the past and to be characterized by candor 
and cordiality. The Reform Party in China 
look to Europe for help and encouragement 
in their task of reconstructing a mighty na- 
tion, and once their aims are appreciated 
they will not look in vain. One cloud there 
is on the horizon, however, no bigger than a 
man's hand. In one of his most recent 
speeches in Canton, Sun Yat Sen referred 
very briefly to an old controversy — that 
touching the question of extra-territoriality 
— and as it is practically certain that more, 
much more, will be heard of the matter, it 
may be as well to state shortly in what the 
difference consists. 

The facts are these. When, in 1842, the 



224 SUN YAT SEN 

Chinese had been hopelessly defeated by 
Britain, they signed the famous treaty of 
Nanking. This provided for the compulsory 
cession of the Island of Hong-Kong, the 
opening of not only Canton but Amoy, Foo- 
chow, Shanghai, and Ningpo as treaty ports, 
the location of a British Consul in each port, 
and, most necessary but most humiliating of 
all to China, the recognition of the extra- 
territorial rights of all foreigners, so that 
no matter what their crime, they could not 
be tried by Chinese courts, but only by their 
own Consuls. This treaty contributed so 
much to the opening of China that Dr. S. 
Wells Williams characterized it as ** one of 
the turning-points in the history of mankind, 
involving the welfare of all nations in its 
wide-reaching consequences.'' That may 
have been the case. 

None the less the Chinese have always 
bitterly resented its terms. In fact, these 
extra-territorial rights are one of the chief 
sources of irritation against foreigners, for 
they not only imply contempt for China, 
but make foreigners a privileged class. Said 
Minister Wen Hsiang in 1868 : '' Take away 
your extra-territorial clause, and merchant 
and missionary may settle anywhere and 
everywhere. But retain it, and we must do 
our best to confine you and our trouble to 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 225 

the treaty ports/' Unfortunately this is a 
cause of resentment that Western nations 
cannot immediately remove. While we can 
understand the resentment of the Chinese 
magistrates as they see their methods dis- 
credited by the foreigner, it would not do to 
subject Europeans and Americans to Chinese 
legal procedure. The answer of Mr. Wade, 
the British Minister, still applies: — 

** Experience has shown that in many cases 
the latter {i.e,, the law of China) will con- 
demn a prisoner to death, where the law of 
England would be satisfied with a penalty 
far less severe, if, indeed, it were possible 
to punish the man at all. It is to be de- 
plored that misunderstandings should arise 
from a difference in our codes, but I see no 
remedy for this until China shall see fit to 
revise the process of investigation now com- 
mon in her courts. So long as evidence is 
wrung from witnesses by torture, it is 
scarcely possible for the authorities of a for- 
eign Power to associate themselves with 
those of China in the trial of a criminal case ; 
and unless the authorities of both nation- 
alities are present, there will always be a 
suspicion of unfairness on one side or the 
other. This difficulty surmounted, there 
would be none in the way of providing a code 
of laws to affect mixed cases; none, certainly, 



226 SUN YAT SEN 

on the part of England; none, in my belief, 
either, on the part of any other Power.'' 

Meantime, as the Hon. Frederick Low, 
United States Minister at Peking, wrote to 
the State Department at Washington, March 
20, 1871: ^^ The dictates of humanity will 
not permit the renunciation of the right for 
all foreigners that they shall be governed 
and punished by their own laws." 

There can be no doubt whatever that so 
long as the corrupt and degrading system of 
justice that characterized the Manchu regime 
persisted, it was not possible for civilized 
countries to adopt any other attitude than 
that of rigid insistence on their extra-terri- 
torial rights. The old Chinese criminal code 
differs so widely from our own, it is, accord- 
ing to Western notions, so capricious and in- 
explicable, that obviously Europeans would 
not live under its harsh and antiquated pro- 
visions. But now the question arises, or it 
will soon arise, as to whether this attitude 
does not properly belong to ancient history, 
for in the recasting of Chinese institutions 
none, it is certain, will be reformed more 
drastically than the judiciary. The day of 
the corrupt and impossible mandarins is 
over. 

Who will take their place! Students and 
lawyers, trained, not only in Chinese uni- 



THE FUTUEE OF CHINA 227 

versities, but at Western seats of learning — 
men who have taken their degrees at Oxford 
and Cambridge, at Harvard and Berlin, and 
who will administer laws based not upon 
obscure customs, and drafted centuries ago, 
but passed in a Parliament representative 
of modern China and with the experience of 
the world to guide its deliberations. We 
must not forget that perhaps the greatest 
triumph achieved by Sun Yat Sen and his 
colleagues has been that while they have 
carried on, under the extraordinary circum- 
stances we have described, an incessant war- 
fare with the Manchu despotism, they have 
never lost sight of the fact that a day would 
come when it would be absolutely necessary 
for them to set about the work of reconstruc- 
tion, and accordingly, as the impending col- 
lapse of the old regime became more and 
more apparent. Sun Yat Sen succeeded in 
persuading the rich and influential among his 
supporters to send the brightest spirits of 
the younger generation to be educated out- 
side China. There is something decidedly 
impressive in the quiet confidence and 
strength of a leader who, as he directs the 
pulling down of a doomed edifice, takes steps 
to raise another in its place, and the pre- 
science of the man who has for twenty years 
directed operations against the Manchu des- 



228 SUN YAT SEN 

potism will be in nothing more apparent than 
this : that now the crash has come he has his 
men ready for all the positions of trust and 
danger on whose fitness the State must de- 
pend. This is true of the Army, of the Navy, 
of the Magistracy, and it is certain that, with 
a reconstituted bench, whose personnel is un- 
exceptional, administering a modern and 
scientific system of law, the Eepublic will 
press on the Powers the demand for the 
abrogation of these extra-territorial treaties. 
China, when weak and decadent, accepted 
them only under pressure. China conscious 
of her own immense reserves of strength is 
not in the least likely to suffer them a day 
longer than she can help. 

How will China enforce this demand? 
She can bring to bear on Europe a most pow- 
erful, albeit indirect influence — the influence 
of trade. The great objection to the Man- 
chu dynasty outside China was that it ham- 
pered commerce at almost every turn. It 
needed not one, but many wars to get Euro- 
pean business men ordinary commercial 
facilities, and, as we have seen, the indus- 
trial resources of the country have not yet 
begun to be developed. It will be the policy 
of the Eepublican Government, not to con- 
tinually restrict and harass trade, but, sub- 
ject to certain conditions, to facilitate by all 



THE FUTUEE OF CHINA 229 

means in their power the opening up to the 
industrial nations of the earth of the great- 
est market for their goods that the world 
can afford. 

It is certain, even from the speech of Sun 
Yat Sen to which we have referred, that the 
price she will demand for this is the can- 
cellation, probably under a time limit, of the 
extra-territorial clauses, giving in return 
treaties and concessions of infinitely more 
importance and value. 

For there can be no '' possible probable 
shadow of doubt '' that the revolution in 
China is to be the precursor of one of the 
greatest industrial ^^ booms " that the world 
has ever seen. Consider first the neglected 
mineral resources of the Flowery Land. The 
world has only faintly realized the value of 
these deposits. Huge reserves of anthracite 
coal and vast quantities of iron are two of 
China's most important assets. Both have 
been proved: neither has been worked. 
True, for centuries the Chinese have been 
busily engaged in working the coal outcrops 
in Hunan, and in other parts of the Empire. 
But how? By means of shallow pits and the 
most rudimentary appliances for dealing 
with water, which finally overwhelmed them. 
True, also, that recently numerous attempts 
have been made upon the part of various 



230 SUN YAT SEN 

financial groups to develop the vast deposits 
of coal on modern lines. 

There was, for instance, the famous Peking 
Syndicate, formed to exploit the metallifer- 
ous areas of the two rich provinces of Honan 
and Shansi, provinces which, according to 
the scientist traveller. Baron Von Eicht- 
hofen, contain enough coal and iron to keep 
the world busy for two thousand years. The 
prospects of the syndicate were, therefore, 
excellent. But what took place? The shares, 
it is true, went to a premium on the Stock 
Exchange, but the actual coal and iron raised 
were a negligible quantity. Disturbed con- 
ditions prevented any operations until 1902. 
Then there were difficulties with the Chinese 
Government, who procrastinated as only Ce- 
lestials can. 

Finally, so it is alleged, it was discovered 
that the original contract of the Peking Syn- 
dicate was defective, inasmuch as the Eng- 
lish and Chinese texts differed in some essen- 
tial particulars, and it was, unfortunately, 
never agreed which text was to be the 
authoritative one. There have been other "^ 
syndicates formed with prospects just as al- 
luring, with histories just as barren of re- 
sults to every one except the lawyers. It 
was essential, in fact, to the development of 
China that a new spirit should animate her 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 231 

Government, that a new faith should quicken 
the pulse of her people, and the inevitable 
has happened. Both the Peking Syndicate 
and the basket method of mining belong to 
an era that has definitely closed, and the first 
care of the Eepublican Government, once it 
has provided for national defence, will be to 
organize upon modern lines the development 
of the national wealth whose neglect was 
alone sufficient to condemn the Empire. Let 
us see for a moment what this means to 
China. *^ While in Teng-Chow-Fu," says 
Mr. Brown, ^* we witnessed a pathetic cere- 
mony. There had been no rain for several 
weeks. The kaoliang was withering and the 
farmers could not plant their beans on the 
ground from which the winter wheat had 
been cut. The people had become alarmed 
as the drought continued, and they were 
parading the streets bearing banners, wear- 
ing chaplets of withered leaves on their heads 
to remind the gods that the vegetation was 
dying, beating drums to attract the atten- 
tion of the gods, and ever and anon falling 
on their knees and praying, ' Great Dragon, 
send us rain ! ' It was pitiful. This country 
is fertile, but the population is so enormous 
that, in the absence of any manufacturing or 
mining, the people even in the most favored 
seasons live from hand to mouth, and a 



232 SUN YAT SEN 

drought means the starvation of multitudes.'' 
Obviously a people living almost exclusively 
on agriculture and disdaining mining ,and 
manufacture must become inured to a stand- 
ard of living that appears incredibly low to 
the Westerner, with few comforts and with 
their very food liable to constant menace. 
Inevitably the industrial awakening must 
check this impoverishment of the people. 

Let it be remembered that a direct result 
of this impoverishment is infanticide, the 
greatest blot on the Chinese escutcheon, for 
it should be noted that this horror is preva- 
lent only where grinding poverty obliterates 
natural affection. Only in the famine dis- 
tricts may we read the words " Girl babies 
must not be drowned here." 

The elf ect of the industrial awakening will 
be felt far outside China. It will provide the 
European and American exporter with such 
a market as trader never dreamed of. With 
the Eepublic China has entered definitely 
upon a course of commercial development, 
and we have only to reflect for an instant 
upon the vastness of her population to real- 
ize that this way lies an economic revolution 
such as the world has never seen. No effort 
will be required on the part of the Chinese 
to enter industrial life, for which alike their 
instinctive capacity for craftsmanship and 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 233 

their sense of discipline eminently fit them. 
Once the Chinese finds his standard of 
life is rising, once his wants increase and 
multiply so that his consmnption becomes 
considerable, obviously his country will offer 
unequalled opportunities for the expansion 
of trade. Already there are indications that 
point in this direction. Modern inventions, 
more varied foods, articles of comfort for- 
merly unsuspected of the Celestial, these 
have already made themselves known in 
China. The peasant is no longer content 
with the wretched tallow candles and ^^ oil 
lamps " with their wicks floating in cups; 
he wants kerosene instead of bean oil, and 
he is learning to buy American lamps, and 
thus Chinese households are being rescued 
from the misery of semi-darkness. In Can- 
ton the narrow streets are brilliant with 
houses lit with German chandeliers and 
lamps — cheap perhaps, but infinitely supe- 
rior to those they have replaced. Not only 
are new lamps for old demanded, but there 
is everywhere in China evidence of the live- 
liest dissatisfaction with the wretched hous- 
ing conditions, and for the mud roof of a 
generation ago bright red tiles are being 
substituted. The impact of Western ideas 
has created a host of new demands of which 
Europe is already feeling the benefit. 



234 SUN YAT SEN 

The old days when China bought next to 
nothing from the West are over. At a ban- 
quet given by the foreign Ministers to the 
Emperor and Empress Dowager in the 
famous Summer Palace outside Peking a 
few years ago, the guests cut York ham with 
knives from Sheffield, and drank French 
wines out of German glasses. And not 
merely the aristocrats and the wealthy, but 
the people themselves are touched by the 
new spirit. The children that went naked 
are being clothed, and already thousands 
upon thousands of sewing-machines are 
buzzing in countless Chinese homes. Fathers 
and mothers are learning to vary the eternal 
monotony of ^^ rice diet.'' They are learn- 
ing the superiority of wooden floors to ground 
encrusted with filth, of good roads to tor- 
tuous paths through heaps of putrid gar- 
bage. 

In a word, China is becoming civilized, and 
as a purchaser of Western goods she will 
easily outdistance all competitors. The 
change set in prior to the revolution, which 
will enormously quicken the pace. 

Cotton and flour mills have been spring- 
ing up in various parts of the country. Silk 
filatures fitted with modern plant are every- 
where on the increase. Small native-owned 
iron foundries and machine shops with Euro- 



THE FUTUEE OF CHINA 235 

pean machinery are being established along 
the coast, river, and rail, and during the 
decade 1896-1906 — a period that included 
two wars, several famines, and many spo- 
radic outbreaks — the net value of the foreign 
trade of the country increased 80 per cent. — 
from 366,329,983 taels in 1897 to 646,726,821 
taels in 1906. 

*' If these things are done in the green 
twig, what shall be done in the dry? '' Ee- 
member, the above increase was effected in 
the teeth of the opposition of a Government 
bent upon hampering trade in every possible 
respect. The contrary will be the policy of 
the Eepublic, whose leaders realize to the 
full that they are responsible to countless 
millions whose only escape from abject pov- 
erty lies in the expansion of trade. And 
they will seek to extend that trade, first and 
foremost, by the provision of such a system 
of railways as will liberate the immense 
mineral resources of China and make their 
development a commercial possibility. 

The provision of railways is to China an 
absolute necessity of her complete industrial 
awakening. Without them her minerals can- 
not profitably be worked. There are, it 
should be borne in mind, no roads to speak 
of in the interior of China. Euts have been 
made by the passing of generations of feet 



236 SUN YAT SEN 

and wheels— ruts that are either thick with 
dust or fathomless with mud. Add to this 
one other consideration — the bewildering 
vastness of the territory— and we realize at 
once the paramount importance of improved 
transit. What has been done thus far in the 
direction of providing China with railways? 
The first railway ever built in China, that 
laid down in 1875, was, as we have seen, 
destroyed by the Government. It was six 
years before it was followed by another at- 
tempt, a line from the Kaiping coal-mines to 
Taku, at the mouth of the Fei-ho Eiver and 
the ocean gateway to the capital. Later this 
line was extended, and now forms part of the 
Imperial Eailway, belonging to the Chinese 
Government, though with bonds issued on it 
to the French and American capitalists who 
financed its working. It was not till 1895 
that any concessions to build railways, much 
worth counting, were granted by the Chinese 
Government. Then they were issued rapidly, 
and, according to the ArcMv fur Eisenhahn- 
reisen of Germany, the total length of the 
railways in use in China was about 742 miles, 
an aggregate so trifling as to be ridiculous, 
while lines of the very greatest importance, 
whose very construction will require years 
of constant work, are '' projected " and re- 
main so. 




"HEADS AND TAILS" 
A Street scene in Shanghai. A festal occasion 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 237 

What has caused the delay? In part it 
is due to the inherent defects of the old or- 
der, the almost endless procrastinations, the 
interminable delays, the stubborn hostility 
to foreign syndicates — for all of which and 
for a hundred other offences the Manchus 
are to blame. 

On the other hand, we must recognize that 
no little blame attaches to the ^' frenzied 
finance " which has used railways in China 
merely as a bait for unwary speculators, with- 
out making any serious effort to place them 
on a sound footing. Worse even than the 
merely obstructive policy of the Chinese 
Government has been this : that, as Mr. Put- 
nam Weale explains, ^^ no effective control 
has been exercised by the Government over 
the European syndicates, with the result that 
the whole system of railway building has 
been bad from first to last." Constructional 
expenses have too often been made simply 
enormous so as to allow commissions of in- 
ordinate size to line the pockets of those 
who have been successful enough to receive 
building concessions. In no other part of 
the world would syndicates have been per- 
mitted to float loans without first submitting 
to the Government of the country definite 
surveys and building tenders, which would 
afford a check on capital expenditure and 



238 SUN YAT SEN 

make the concessionaires, and not the Gov- 
ernment, liable for any expenditure not ex- 
pressly specified in the final contracts. In 
the case of the Shanghai-Nanking Eailway, 
the original estimates have been exceeded by 
nearly three-quarters of a million sterling. 

In this particular case there is a keen dis- 
pute as to where the blame should be laid, 
but speaking generally, there can be no pos- 
sible doubt that the railway development of 
China has been grievously retarded, as much 
by unscrupulous concessionaires as by the 
supineness of the Chinese Government. It 
needs no great penetration to discern what 
the policy of the Republican Government will 
be, for, while on the one hand they will do 
everything in their power to encourage capi- 
tal with which to inaugurate a really ade- 
quate system of railways, yet they will end 
once for all the system, whereby groups of 
men and interests, not primarily associated 
with railway building, come into the market 
to exploit the Chinese by raising to an 
absurd figure the capital cost of the railways 
built. 

Railways, in fact, will, after national de- 
fence, be the first care of the Chinese Execu- 
tive, which will leave no stone unturned, first, 
to secure the capital for their construction; 
secondly, to see to it that not a penny is 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA 239 

wasted. A stupendous task indeed, but well 
worth the effort. 

As Mr. Brown says: *' It would be im- 
possible to describe adequately the far-reach- 
ing effect upon China and the Chinese of this 
extension of modern railways. We have an 
illustration of its meaning in America, where 
the transcontinental railroads resulted in the 
amazing development of our western plains 
and of the Pacific coast. The effect of such 
a development in China can hardly be over- 
estimated, for China has more than ten times 
the population of the trans-Mississippi re- 
gion, while its territory is vaster and equally 
rich in mineral resources. As I travelled 
through the land, it seemed to me that al- 
most the whole northern part of the Empire 
was composed of illimitable fields of wheat 
and millet, and that in the south the millions 
of paddy plots formed a rice-field of con- 
tinental proportions. Hidden away in 
China's mountains and underlying her bound- 
less plateaus are immense deposits of coal 
and iron; while above any other country on 
the globe, China has the labor for the de- 
velopment of agriculture and manufacture. 
Think of the influence, not only upon the 
Chinese but the whole world, when railways 
not only carry the corn of Hunan to the 
famine sufferers in Shantung, but when they 



240 SUN YAT SEN 

bring coal, iron, and other products of 
Chinese soil and industry within reach of 
steamship lines running to Europe and 
America. To make all these resources avail- 
able to the rest of the world, and in turn to 
introduce among the 426,000,000 of the 
Chinese the products and inventions of 
Europe and America, is to bring about an 
economic transformation of stupendous 
proportions. ' ' 



A STATEMENT AND AN APPEAL BY 

SUN YAT SEN * 

' 'fT^O the Friends of China in the United 
I States of America: — 

*^ While officially I am not com- 
pelled to speak of Chinese affairs and can 
in no direct sense be a mouthpiece for the 
Government of the Republic, I feel that it is 
my bounden duty to speak quite fully regard- 
ing matters in which I am deeply concerned 
to the end that certain misunderstandings 
prejudicial to the interests of my country may 
be cleared. 

* ^ Perhaps I would not feel this justification 
were it not for the fact that with my own 
eyes I have read in American and British 
journals many misstatements of fact, particu- 
larly regarding my own relations with the 
head and heads of the Chinese Government 
and of certain factions of my countrymen. 
All manner of rumors and reports have been 

* Reproduced by permission from New York Sun, Sept. 24, 
1912. 

241 



242 SUN YAT SEN 

sent by telegraph and mail from the different 
ports of China and Japan to the European 
and American publics, and I would not be sur- 
prised if the intelligent opinion of the West- 
ern peoples was to the effect that we here in 
China are rapidly preparing to undo the good 
that has been done. 

' ' I can readily understand that certain acts 
of those in authority might be understood to 
mean that revolution or rebellion was pend- 
ing in parts of the Republic. I am not called 
upon just now to say whether I fully approve 
of some of the recent acts of President Yuan 
Shih-k'ai. Perhaps I approve, perhaps I do 
not ; that is a matter wholly personal, and has 
no bearing — or, at least, should have none^ — 
upon political matters and conditions gener- 
ally. 

'^ The relations between President Yuan 
and myself are personally very cordial. It is 
true that we do not agree upon all matters of 
public policy, but our differences are those 
which the world expects to find among its pub- 
lic men. It would be remarkable, to say the 
least, if a set of public men could be found in 
any country who were of one mind in all mat- 
ters of public concern. 

^^ I believe I can safely say that upon one 
matter of first importance all the leaders in 
China are of one mind : The best good of the 



A STATEMENT AND AN APPEAL 243 

country. As to how this may be attained is 
quite another matter, but we are all striving 
and working for the one meritorious and 
noble end. 

^ * No one thinks of a civil war in the United 
States simply because Mr. Taft, Mr. Wilson 
and Mr. Roosevelt do not agree upon matters 
of public policy. Each of these gentlemen 
is certainly a true American and a patriot of 
a very high order. Yet there are — if my 
knowledge of American affairs is worthy — 
many great and vital issues upon which they 
disagree totally. 

*^ May it not be so in China? 

*^ I have but within a few hours returned 
from a visit to the capital ; the city which, if 
foreign journals are to be credited, I hardly 
dared visit because of the personal danger I 
would run ! It is too bad ; it is wicked indeed 
that such ideas should be published broadcast. 
Great injury is thus done our country and the 
cause for which we have so long striven. 
Both are given a setback in the eyes of the 
world. 

*^ During my visit to President Yuan in 
June I told him very frankly my ideas upon 
many important matters that were then to 
the fore. We discussed at length the six 
Power loan, as it had been called, and the 
terms upon which it should be made and 



244 SUN YAT SEN 

accepted. We also went into tlie matter of the 
relief of distress, the organization of political 
parties, the teaching of civil science to the 
people, the disposal of Government mines and 
lands, the project of opening vast tracts of 
agricultural lands for settlement and other 
matters of import. 

'' At that time President Yuan gave out a 
very complete statement of his views on many 
of these questions, and while his expressed 
opinions were his own they embodied very 
largely my own views on the various topics. 
Almost to the last word of that statement my 
own views were in accord with those of the 
President. 

^^ If the foreign correspondents at Hong- 
kong, Shanghai, Pekin and other places would 
but make an effort to ascertain the truth on 
questions involving the welfare of the nation 
or the policy of the Government, or would 
diligently search out those officials who are 
in a position to give them facts, there would 
be less conflict of opinion in foreign countries 
regarding Chinese matters. 

''It is for this reason that I am willing, 
even anxious, to make this statement. I de- 
sire that my country and countrymen, and the 
relations of President Yuan and myself, be 
placed properly before the intelligent peoples 
of Europe and America. In this age public 



A STATEMENT AND AN APPEAL 245 

opinion is ofttimes more potent for the ad- 
vancement of good or the accomplishment of 
evil than fleets of warships and divisions of 
armies. 

^^ I wish to go on record once and for all 
as saying that in spite of the efforts, past or 
future, of the enemies of the Chinese Repub- 
lic there will be no civil war in our country. 
China has been credited with having been a 
* sleeping nation ' for centuries, and in a cer- 
tain sense — in many senses, in fact — the 
phrase has been correctly applied. But our 
enemies must not count too confidently upon 
China being asleep to-day. Her leaders are 
awake to the needs of her people, to the call 
of the twentieth century, to the hopes and am- 
bitions of the present. 

^* We understand too well that there are 
certain men of power — not to include for the 
present certain nations — who would view with 
a greater or lesser satisfaction an internal 
rupture in the new republic. They would wel- 
come as a move toward the accomplishment 
of their own ends and designs a civil war be- 
tween the provinces of the north and the 
south; just as, fifty years ago, there was ap- 
plause in secret (in certain quarters) over 
the terrible civil strife in the United States. 

** Americans of to-day who were alive in 
those dark days of the great republic will re- 



246 SUN YAT SEN 

member the feelings in the hearts of the 
people — the bitter and painful thoughts that 
arose from the knowledge that foreigners 
were hoping and praying for the destruction 
of the American Union. 

^' Had the war been successful from the 
South 's standpoint, and had two separate re- 
publics been established, is it not likely that 
perhaps half a dozen or more weak nations 
would have eventually been established! I 
believe that such would have been the result ; 
and I further believe that with the one great 
nation divided politically and commercially 
outsiders would have stepped in sooner or 
later and made of America their own. I do 
not believe that I am stating this too forcibly. 
If so I have not read history nor studied men 
and nations intelligently. 

^* And I feel that we have just such enemies 
abroad as the American republic had; and 
that at certain capitals the most welcome 
announcement that could be made would be 
that of a rebellion in China against the con- 
stituted authorities. 

" This is a hard statement to make; but I 
believe in speaking the truth so that all the 
world may know and recognize it. 

"• However, foreign ill wishers may as well 
understand first as last— perhaps better now 
—that the men who are at the forefront of 



A STATEMENT AND AN APPEAL 247 

Chinese affairs are a unit for the Republic as 
established and cannot be brought, individu- 
ally or in factions, to oppose the onward 
march of the Chinese nation. Neither flat- 
tery, fear, intrigue nor gold has power to 
make the leaders of the new China, nor any 
one of them, turn back the hopes, wishes and 
aspirations of our people. 

^^ As I have said in the beginning of this 
statement, I am not called upon to speak offi- 
cially for the Government of China. Presi- 
dent Yuan Shih-k'ai is the head of the na- 
tion, the strong, worthy leader of his people, 
and I am not authorized to speak for him, 
for his Cabinet or for the National Assembly ; 
but I believe I am voicing the sentiment of a 
united and unanimous people when I warn 
trouble makers, at home or abroad, that the 
Chinese nation has joined the great family of 
republics to remain a member thereof at what- 
ever cost or sacrifice. 

*' Let not one word which I have uttered 
be construed as being even remotely a hint 
that the China of the new order is opposed to 
foreigners or to legitimate outside interest in 
the country's welfare. The very opposite is 
the case; for we welcome the missionaries, the 
men of trade and the capitalists and scientists 
of the other nations. 

* ^ In proof of this it may be cited that Pres- 



248 SUN YAT SEN 

ident Yuan SMh-k'ai has already selected 
three eminent foreigners to aid him in his 
work: One a jurist, the second a journalist, 
the other a college professor. Another emi- 
nent man, an American diplomat and one of 
China's foremost friends, is desired for a high 
post at the capital, and a formal request has 
already been made both to the United States 
Government and to the gentleman concerned. 

^^ Why are these men desired! Simply be- 
cause they are men of wisdom, who have 
shown in the past that unselfishly they have 
the interests of China at heart. They are 
men of the calibre of the late Sir Robert 
Hart, for a quarter of a century at the head 
of the finances of China. Sir Robert, an 
Irish-Britisher, became the most trusted as 
he was the most efficient and influential of 
^ Chinese.' 

^' No man because of his nativity or creed 
will be barred from service under the Repub- 
lic. Now, above all times, my country needs 
the assistance of the world's best brains. 
But enemies to the State will not be tolerated ; 
and upon this point the Chinese people, high 
and low, are a unit. 

^^ Perhaps it is almost superfluous for me 
to say that the most pressing need of China 
to-day is her establishment upon a sound fi- 
nancial basis. The country is in need of a 



A STATEMENT AND AN APPEAL 249 

large sum in order that the wheels of govern- 
ment machinery may revolve without fric- 
tion. Alarmists have said because the pro- 
posed loan has not been quickly negotiated 
that the Eepublic was in dire danger of col- 
lapse. There is not a shadow of reason for 
this assertion, for while it is true that the 
problem of the establishment of the new order 
of things would be very much less complex if 
our Treasury were amply supplied, it is also 
true that with the means at its disposal the 
Government has accomplished great things; 
and it is but a question of time — six or eight 
years perhaps — that, even without a great na- 
tional loan, the affairs of the country will be 
upon a satisfactory financial basis. 

^* It must be remembered that while China 
has millions of very poor people (and hun- 
dreds of thousands who are constantly but a 
few days removed from possible starvation) 
there are also millions of people capable of 
paying taxes in amounts greater or less, and 
that when the new system of taxation is put 
into operation in all parts of the country the 
various governments, city, provincial and na- 
tional, will be well supported. 

*^ Now that the country is again at peace, 
excepting in certain remote and unimportant 
districts, I look for a big increase in com- 
merce, domestic and foreign, with consequent 



250 SUN YAT SEN 

well being in agriculture, manufacturing and 
the various other industries. With the peo- 
ple everywhere working, with peace at north, 
south, east and west, the country is bound to 
be prosperous and the Government stable 
and substantial. 

'^ It should be remembered also that China, 
in spite of her reputation for poverty and 
famine, is really a very rich country in natu- 
ral resources. Tradition, belief and super- 
stition through the centuries have conserved 
the minerals of the country, the great quarries 
of granite, marble and onyx and the vast for- 
ests of valuable woods in the south and south- 
west. Experts have made reports and have 
told me personally that the coal lands still 
untouched are of a value quite unfigurable, 
while the iron, copper and zinc hills are pro- 
nounced by French experts to be the most 
promising ever operated anywhere. 

^' When it is understood that all these prop- 
erties, as well as over a hundred millions of 
acres of fertile agricultural lands, are the un- 
questioned property of the Government, it 
can readily be seen that, except for immediate 
and transient needs, the country is far from 
being in a state of insolvency. 
^ '' The President, his Cabinet and the Na- 
tional Assembly— backed as they are by the 
intelligent sentiment of united China— are 



A STATEMENT AND AN APPEAL 251 

determined that these properties shall not 
pass from the hands and control of their right- 
ful owners, the people of China. Concessions 
and leases will be granted, have in some in- 
stances already been made and granted, but 
the title shall not pass from the Treasury. 

a Therefore China, although thousands of 
years older than any of the other living na- 
tions to-day, is younger than the youngest of 
them so far as the richness of her mountains 
and the fertility of her virgin lands are con- 
cerned. 

^' I wish to speak briefly now about one 
other matter, my attention being drawn to 
it by the publication of a sensational cable in 
England to the effect that myself and my fol- 
lowers were insisting — under a veiled threat 
of civil war — that the capital be removed 
from Pekin to the ancient seat of government. 
Nankin. 

^ ^ Frankly and avowedly I am in favor of a 
more central location for the capital, believ- 
ing that Pekin is too remote from the large 
centres of population. It is as if the seat 
of government of the United States were lo- 
cated at Augusta, Maine. Washington is far 
from occupying a central location, but it at 
least has the advantage of being about midway 
of the Atlantic coast line of the United States. 
A relative position for China's capital would 



252 SUN YAT SEN 

be about Shanghai or Nankin, and it is be- 
cause of this that I have advocated the change 
— not because, as has been foolishly asserted, 
that I feared in its present site it would be 
more likely to capture by the Japanese ! 

*^ Japan is our nearest great neighbor and 
we expect to live on the most friendly terms 
with her. Old animosities have been forgot- 
ten. It will be to Japan's benefit if China 
grows in progress and prosperity; and I can- 
not be made believe that Japan has any 
other feeling toward us than one wishing us 
a long and rich future. 

^^ My recent visit to Pekin was not made 
for the purpose of stirring up trouble or dis- 
cord. It was, on the other hand, to assure 
President Yuan that many sayings attributed 
to me were not only untrue but without the 
slightest foundation in fact. I have not only 
confidence in his loyalty and ability and be- 
lieve him worthy of the firmest support, 
but I repledge myself to devote my best and 
every effort to aid him in the great and noble 
work he has undertaken. 

'^ It is my earnest wish that this statement 
be given the widest publicity possible." 

SUN YAT SEN. 
Nankin, China, August 27, 1912. 

2 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 




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